Wadds' PR Blog » Clay Shirky

#InVinceCable crowdsourced Twitter brainstorm at 1pm today

Wadds — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 06:15:03 +0000

The InvinceCable campaign continues to break new ground during what has been billed the UK’s first social media election.

The apolitical campaign is seeking to instigate conversations around the need for a qualified candidate to hold the position of Chancellor.

Today it will attempt a new Clay Shirky inspired tactic with a crowdsourced brainstorm on Twitter at 1pm (UK time) using the hashtag #InVinceCable.

I’ll be travelling to a client meeting but hope to get involved in the discussion via my mobile.

Free speech doesn’t exist on the Internet in the UK

Wadds — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 21:37:37 +0000

We like to think that the Internet is re-writing the rules of business and the media. And it is, but not as fast as you might think.

Clay Shirky first showed us how crowds can be mobilised online for positive effect. But Ged Carroll sounds a note of caution:

“The door that we have walked through to allow justice and freedom-of-speech through the wisdom of crowds can also easily succumb to the wisdom of mobs. Society hasn’t really thought through how to deal with all the ramifications.”

And so social media watchers got very excited last week when huge number of conversations on Twitter about the Trafigura injunction against The Guardian seemingly forced its lawyers Carter-Ruck to back down.

I thought we’d observed a game changing moment. Not a chance. There are currently more than 300 so-called super injunctions holding tight in the UK according to Joshua Rozenberg on Sky News on Saturday morning (via @rfenwick).

Was the Trafigura incident a one off? I doubt it. But don’t let the Trafigura case fool you. Legal process is alive and well on the Internet.

Why local bloggers may never compete with local media

Wadds — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:09:02 +0000

A couple of months ago I signed up as a local blogger to the Newcastle Journal’s Your Place regional blogging project. It’s created a network of 22-local micro sites each of which are fed with content by local bloggers.

Clay Shirky, Seth Godin, and others have spotlighted this approach as a means of breathing life into regional media. But I’ve very quickly identified a flaw in the model of using bloggers to contribute to local media properties.

In local communities bloggers can’t be outspoken and risk causing offence. I’m sitting on at least two cracking stories that as a journalist I wouldn’t hesitate to run, but as a blogger living in the community I’m staying well clear of through fear of pissing off my neighbours.

What’s the answer?