In study released Wednesday by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, it is reported that the mainstream media stories differ greatly from stories that are user-chosen on Digg, Del.icio.us and Reddit. The study compared coverage on the three social media sites with 48 mainstream media outlets from June 24 to June 29.
During the study period, the mainstream media covered immigration debate in Congress as well as the war in Iraq. Social media sites, however had its users pick stories about the iPhone (iDay was June 28) and Nintendo surpassing Sony in net worth.
All I can say is “duhhhh.”
First, as Scott Karp points out in his blog, the audience for Digg and Reddit is completely different from that of that of most mainstream media sites:
The other issue, which the report does address to a limited degree, is that audience for Digg and Reddit is principally young, male, tech enthusiasts (with a dash of puerile interest) — the “users” or “citizens” of these sites are in NO way representative of the broad, diverse group of mainstream news consumers.
Next, how are these people using Digg, etc.? I don’t Digg “big” news stories. Why should I? Maybe I’m using it incorrectly, but those stories are on the home page of every major media outlet. I Digg stories that are are offbeat and often buried. I also Digg those stories that contain an interesting (often contrarian) opinion. Hopefully, that’s not a top story for the major media (it angers me when “news” outlets inject opinion into NEWS stories).
Last time I checked, Digg, Del.icio.us and Reddit were not billing themselves as “hard” news aggregators. Nope, they are for tagging what is “new and popular” online. I’m disappointed in the PEJ for not catching this HUGE difference in purpose. Oh well.
Bottom line: Folks, don’t think that you are getting your hard news from Digg, Reddit or Del.icio.us. You are going to have to hit the AP, BBC, Fox News, CNN or another one. But you knew that. You’re not stupid.
Jesse, who is one of the great ad / PR execs of the 70s and 80s, sent me this ad that ran in one of our local papers. I’m guessing that it was inspired by the Brazilian Playboy ad. To quote Jesse’s email:
Brilliant beyond belief. I saw it and said, s!@t, compared to this, I never wrote an ad in my life that was worth the paper it was printed on.
It’s a good ad. You can decide if it’s *that* good…
I’m sure you heard that Apple dropped the price of the iPhone from $599 to $399. Of course you did. People who wanted an iPhone were thrilled that they waited while those of us that waited in line in the searing heat for 6 hours were a little upset that we paid an average of $20 per day for the privilege to own one. As a matter of fact, early iPhone adopters were so upset and vocal about it that Steve Jobs issued an open letter saying that current iPhone owners would get a $100 Apple store credit. Or so it would seem.
Apple planned it all along.
In public relations the best way to get press is through controversy. In this case, Apple created a big one. Every iPhone owner with a blog voiced discontent because they “overpaid.” News organizations ran stories about the price change because of the discontent. It’s probable that the new pricing wouldn’t have been reported at all without the controversy. And who did the controversy hurt? iPhone owners already had the phone. Eighty-eight percent are happy with their purchase so it’s unlikely that they would (or even could) return the device. Apple was in a no-lose position. No matter how upset iPhone owners were, there was nothing that they could do about it in the short term except complain very vocally. Of course, their noise let other non-owners know about the new pricing.
So, on day two Jobs gives iPhone users a $100 credit. I think that most iPhone users are happy with the rebate. Again, blog posts and news reports. Instead of a one day story, now we have day two of the story. Apple’s core is happy (pun), and new customers have the impression that Apple looks after its customers. This has easily been the most publicized price reduction in history. Apple wins.
Now, if you don’t have an iPhone yet, it’s probably time to get one…
