Quality > Popularity in Social Media: "Medium"

Social media usually means jokes about funny cat pictures (click here if you dare) or posting to Twitter about what you ate for lunch. This isn't really fair. Like any tool, social media can be used for worthwhile as well as inane things. However, there are some aspects of social media that makes inane things simply easier, like a concentration on volume of interaction and popularity as an indicator of success. It's why George Takei is so popular on Facebook, for example. (Heck, even I follow him.)

Now, some of the very people who helped create the social media platforms that built the popularity dynamic are trying to change this. Ev Williams and Biz Stone founded Blogger (the platform this blog is on, now part of Google) and later Twitter. Last year, the duo teamed up with other developers to help launch Branch, a social media site built around discussion, and their most recent collaboration is Medium. As Ev describes it:

Lots of services have successfully lowered the bar for sharing information, but there’s been less progress toward raising the quality of what’s produced. It’s great that you can be a one-person media outlet, but it’d be even better if there were more ways you could work with others. And in a world of overwhelming quantities of content, how do we direct our attention to what’s most valuable, not just what’s interesting and of-the-moment?

This is what Medium is intended to do. The point of Medium is to put content forward -- the "what" that we talk about -- and create "[a] world where thought and craftsmanship is rewarded more than knee-jerk reactions." Right now, Medium is invite only and in development. Ev talks about it more in his own Medium post, read the whole thing, it's good stuff.

Thought leaders like Chris Brogan are using Medium to test ideas, while engadget describes it as a sort of "Pintrest for text" that allows people to collect and collaborate with meaningful information.

But I want to offer a word of caution:

When we approach social media, it's important to understand how specific platforms affect the quality of interaction, but it is also important not to cede control of our behavior to platform constraints. While Branch, Medium, and other emerging platforms are attempting to change the nature of social media interactions to one of greater depth and meaning, that doesn't mean that you, the user, have to wait for those inventions to experience those qualities. Thoughtful approaches on existing platforms can be just as powerful.

I like to talk in analogies, so let me offer one here. Think of this like driving a car. You can be a good, safe, efficient driver in a 1970s Detroit-built tank just as much as in a 2007 Volvo. How the driver -- you -- drives the car is still a matter that is mostly in the hands of the driver, not the car maker.

This is one of the reasons Joanne and I offer CCM 376E Communication in the Digital Age: Integrating Social Media Effectively. Every time we teach this class, we try and empower our students to see social media in new ways that empower them to be thoughtful and effective. It's one of the reasons we are both excited to teach it again in Spring 2013. So consider coming along with us next term!