For my two pence, I don’t feel that social media needs to be legitimized. It might take longer to become mainstream but it is really just another way to consume information. The early adopters (as with all technology) quickly become advocates and evangelists and everyone else will follow once the content becomes relevant to them.

Good work!

I agree with Dan and Annie – it does legitimize politicians to be doing this, and respect to Brown for realising the power of it. Both he and the Labour party (and politicians in general) need to rescue themselves from the damage done by the Campbell/Mandelson project and a decade of refusing to be direct. In the light of that, there’s a chance that this might seem gimmicky, and open him up to the kind of flak Cameron got for webcameron. So it was important that he did it right.

So I disagree with Dan when he takes issue with the idea of it legitimizing these tools and the people who use them. It’s not an Either/Or. It *also* legitimizes them, gives them more credibility in the eyes of a sceptical pubilc and press. Not in *our* eyes – we’ve known for years what the mainstream is only just waking up to.

I have family members who are professional journalists and broadcasters as well as ordinary punters – most of them interested in current affairs – and despite my best efforts to show them the wonders of social media and online video for 3+ years, I think pretty much all of them still look on social media as not much more than a gimmick operated by hobbyists. Perhaps that says more about their view of me(!)… but partly this is a fear of technology, partly a stubborn belief that credible news is be gathered and distributed by professionals working large corporations.

So the more that high profile people use social media, the more people will see it in action being Useful, the less dismissive of it they’ll be and the more they’ll start to like getting some of their news direct from these sources.

A red letter day for journalism

But did you get to ask Gordon Brown what’s on his desk, in his handbag, on his bookshelf and who is favourite Flickr photographers are ???

I’m very much with Dan in terms of how ordinary people like us citizens are basically legitimising the wider press and with that politicians like our PM. Every newspaper I read has some element of “citizen journalism” or “people powered” element in it now and it’s amazing that has happened in just a few years. Trouble is a lot of regular journalists still find it pretty hard to admit or acknowledge that some of their news comes from bloggers or pictures on Flickr. When you question them about this (as I’ve done a number of times) they get super defensive and say “Yes of course we acknowledge our sources” – but in my opinion that’s bollocks.

I’m beginning to get more approaches from PR companies to talk to them about blogging & stuff or to tell them “how to do it” – which is all well & good, but slightly sad they don’t know how to it cos they’ve not been doing any of it naturally themselves.

Next week, the BBC have been kind (& slightly mad) enough to invite me to talk about blogging on Working Lunch on BBC2 – hopefully I won’t rant too much & thanks for letting me have my little rant here.

one thing i’d take issue with is the idea that this kind of initiative somehow ‘legitimises’ social media, the people who use it, and the platforms we use. I’m sure a lot of people see it that way, especially in commercial terms, but i prefer to look at it the other way round – that it was Gordon Brown who was in some small way legitimised by what you did today, by being faithfully rendered without the veneer of MSM packaging and presentation.

i’m sure that seems absurd coming from a media slut such as myself, but i can assure you, I’m completely serious.

Again Much Kudos.

Keep it real.

All my best,
Del
@delboydare