Jan. 18, 2012 #STOPSOPA

Below is a list of sites uniting for today’s online blackout in protest of SOPA and the Protect IP Act.

http://www.cdt.org/report/list-organizations-and-individuals-opposing-sopa

Make your voice heard and sign the blackout petition:

http://sopastrike.com/

Super excited and many thanks to Alan K’necht for giving me the opportunity to host. If you’re a fan of #wjchat, #journchat or social media chats in general, this will be a fun, hopefully thought-provoking live discussion on tweeting for media companies, focusing on the ethics, do’s and don’ts, and proven tactics to run a successful media campaign via Twitter.

Background on me, I have tweeted professionally for LA Magazine (@losangelesmag), the Beverly Hills Courier (@bhcourier), Marketplace Radio (@Mktplaceradio), California Apparel News (@apparelnews) and worked as a consultant for Night Tap (@NightTap) and author Petru Popescu (@petrupopescu).

I tweet at @adampopescu and via @westcoaschops.

For some background on Twitter chats, check out this post I wrote for ReadWriteWeb, How to Get Started With Twitter Chats.

Tune in Monday, Jan. 9 at 6pm PST/ 9pm EST to get involved with #SocialChat.

—Adam Popescu

Farewell Eric, We Hardly Knew You

So, it finally happened. The nba capos nodded their heads in approval and the big boss pulled the trigger…the first mega trade of the shortened season, played like the icy talks themselves: controlled, careful and conniving.

Today, Chris Paul was traded, and the Clippers did the unthinkable. They gave up Eric Gordon. That’s right, LA got Chris Paul, which catapults them into postseason talk, and is huge. That’s macro. But micro, they gave up their blue chip and Olympian, Eric Gordon. Arguably one of the best young two-guards in the game, last year Gordon averaged 22 points, 4 boards and 4 assists a game. I know this is probably for the best for the city, and am looking forward to the pick-and-roll game to come with Paul and Blake Griffin, I’m sorry to see Gordon go. Especially given that his career was really set to blossom this year. I wish him luck with the Hornets, and am sorry to report that Gordon found out about the trade aboard a bus, surrounded by fans. What do you say to that? What do you say to fans?

From ESPN: According to NBA.com, Gordon was on a bus with Clippers season ticket holders, making fan stops when he got word of the trade. Gordon told ESPNLosAngeles.com the deal was “disappointing.”

“People in the organization were telling me I was going to probably stay here, stick around,” he said. “But you don’t know who to trust or follow, give you a lead on anything. I’m just going to take it for how it is. It is kind of tough to swallow, but I’m just a basketball player. I’m not going to have any hard feelings about it.”

Good-bye Eric Gordon. Hello Chris Paul and Chauncey Billups. Oh yeah. You know it’s a saturated market when an Olympic gold winner, nba finals winner and nba finals mvp signs with a team and nobody really gives a damn. That’s the power of basketball and the power of immediacy. What’s hot is hot—now. Right now Paul and the Clippers are hot. Let’s hope they keep it. The acquisition of Paul, Billups, and last week Caron Butler at the small forward truly propels the Clippers into the conversation in LA basketball. But as Jalen Rose said on ESPN tonight, the Lakers still have Kobe, Pau and Andrew Bynum. As long as they have that triumvirate of core players, most still give them the nod between the two teams. But with internal strife over the Lamar trade, and further trade clouds very possible, things remain to be seen at Staples Center.

welcome to staples

Starting lineup for the LA Clippers (projected):

PG Chris Paul

SG Randy Foye

SF Caron Butler

PF Blake Griffin

C DeAndre Jordan

Playoffs? Yes, please.

—Adam Popescu

From media day via the LA Times:

When the best player on (supposedly) the best basketball team in the world says “he doesn’t like it,” clearly there’s a problem here. For the Lakers, whose season starts in a mere few weeks, there are questions aplenty, and a definite shaky identity going into the shortened season.

Meanwhile, rumor mills have Chris Paul now interested in hooping with Blake Griffin and the Clippers if he can’t get on the Knicks or Lakers…Plus Clippers big man of the future DeAndre Jordan just signed an offer sheet with the Warriors, hich means the Clips have three days to match the offer. “Earlier Sunday, a league source told ESPN The Magazine’s Ric Bucher that the team planned to match the Warriors offer.” So Jordan will probably resign on a team that is turning into a dynamic young squad. Could Chris Paul really go to the Clippers? Could it happen? Wait and see…it’s getting weird here…

—Adam Popescu

The league’s decision to nix yesterday’s Chris Paul-Lakers trade shows just how bad the state of basketball really is right now. The danger of having the nba (still in lower case)  have a stake in one of it’s teams, the Hornets,  means all 29 owners have a piece of the club, and a say on trades. And Grand Capo David Stern commissions over all of them.

“It’s dangerous for a league to actually have ownership in a team to begin with because of these type of circumstances…” —Derek Fisher, Lakers point guard, president of the players union, and teammate to trade-bait Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol.

With all this swirling around Laker-land, the more psychologically stable ball club going into the season is the purple and gold’s cross-locker room rivals, the Clippers. At 50 to 1 odds, Blake Griffin and company sure have a mountain to climb, but once they get to the top…

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This just in, the Lakers-Hornets-Rockets trade has been resubmitted to the league! Just broke by Yahoo Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski.

The new deal: “In the details available to Yahoo! Sports, Paul goes to the Lakers, Pau Gasol to the Rockets, and Houston still sends Kevin Martin, Luis Scola, and a 2012 first-round pick to the Hornets. The main changes in the deal, originally nixed by the NBA, will come between New Orleans and the Lakers, sources say.”

Back to the waiting game…

—Adam Popescu

#N17 : Occupy Portland Protester Elizabeth Nichols

Photo by Randy L. Rasmussen/The Oregonian

“What a sad display: ignorance of technology ignorance of economics ignorance of the Constitution. #SOPA ” – Journalist Rob Pegoraro tweeted this week.

Below is the Center for Democracy and Technology‘s take. Read it and decide for yourself:

—Adam Popescu

The Occupy Wall Street movement has grown from local to global. From dozens to hundreds to thousands. After initial success, it’s now at a turning point in the movement — the second phase. It can either devolve into its anarchistic tendencies, or unify to create a more powerful voice. The crux right now is local governments joining forces and evicting protesters in New York and other encampments. This will force the movement underground, or in direct confrontation with the powers that be, and this change could force some real direction and movement, sluggish at best with group sentiment leading decision making, rather than centralized leadership. It’s very possible that now this fracturing, or attempt at fracturing the group, will eliminate the fringe members, and galvanize the die-hards.

Occupy Wall Street is calling tomorrow, November 17, or #N17, a day of action, two months to the day that the occupation began in Zuccotti Park.

To stay on point with all of the varied Occupy news, check out Greg Mitchell at The Nation. He just released released an ebook based on his very popular Occupy Blog: 40 Days That Shook the World: from Occupy Wall Street to Occupy Everywhere. Pick it up—which I guess means downloading now.

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One of the biggest stories regarding Occupy you don’t hear enough of is the media blackout going on—whether suspicious social media control, restricted airspace to not allow helicopter camera views, reporters barred from covering events, even reporters getting detained and arrested for doing their job, amid the protest.

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One of the best stories I’ve kept up with Occupy, is the flack Jay-Z and Rocawear have gotten for releasing an Occupy All Streets t-shirt. It was reported in the WSJ that Rocawear removed the pages from their website.  Yesterday, I visited the site, was able to find the image of the shirt, and purchase. It’s on back order til the middle of December, but if you want, Jigga man gon give it t’ya.

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And from one occupation to another…After failing to work out a deal, arguing over nickel and diming each other, the nba players union disbanded, the season was canceled, and the players are now filing an antitrust suit against the owners. Ech. Disgusting. When people can’t get enough work to feed their families, living check to check, these guys can’t agree on how many millions they get to pocket off basketball.

The nba is now written in lowercase. We have entered into what commissioner david stern calls the “nuclear winter of the nba.” Not only will this be a stunning loss to revenue and the basketball culture, but overall goodwill among men is severly chopblocked on this one—Andrew Bynum- Jose Barea style. Dirty.

Here lies the game. It was once great. Now it is gone. RIP nba.

—Adam Popescu

Klout is taking a lot of shots these days after it changed it’s algorithm. My score dropped by about 15 points and I was devastated. But in a way, it was a positive, because it broke the spell Klout had over me. For months I was obsessed with my score, religiously checking my +Ks, basically a digital acknowledgment of influence on a topic .

For a while I was the #4 most +K’d journalist on Klout, sandwiched between Jeff Jarvis and Anderson Cooper. I would tweet at Anderson Cooper and taunt him in a “na na” style that was harmless, if not playful—he never responded. Anderson Cooper wasn’t on Klout. Guess he’s too busy.

After a few weeks, and a slew of summer an fall New York Times articles, Anderson bumped me in the rankings. Soon I stopped checking my klout score everyday. My score got pretty stagnant—first I was upset, but then it stopped being a big deal. It was just a number. It meant something, but it didn’t. I got to a place where the number was only as important as I made it. And that put me back in the mode of creating content and commenting without concern for how that would affect my Klout score.

For the Plugged In, Too Many Choices

Social media isn’t about numbers, rankings, or page views. Viewed through the wire-rim frames of old media, it is doomed to that limited perspective.

Success with social media at its most basic level is connection—connecting a message or an idea with someone who can use that content to improve their life.

To that effect, one of the most overlooked social media skills needed to make that connection is loyalty. Whether it’s to a product, a service, or any form of digital or print content— raw information or refined media—loyalty to that business or service is what keeps business rolling. It’s what keeps the reader believing that what they read is true, as opposed to what their friend tells them.

The first step to that ideal producer-consumer relationship starts with creating consistently superior product. Breaking news, exclusive content, juicy scoops. This is the stuff of old-time journalism. Today much of the stories we read are synthesized, modified, aggregated and disbursed by today’s whatever works, plug the hole in the dyke joystick journalism. Because of this setting, keeping the message and image of a brand clean is vital in an era where scandal, plagiarism and content theft happen everyday, sometimes unknowingly and unintentionally (as is the case of Jim Romenesko, fired from the Poynter Institute for allegedly not quoting material).

As online professional in news or entertainment media, it is our job to deliver the best, most honest product we can. Keeping it clean in terms of content, curation and brand message is essential to avoid problems before they develop—it’s like keeping your home clean: dusting, washing, throwing out the trash. It’s all about upkeep, consistency, rhythm.

So, what’s next?

Even 12-Year-Olds Can Write iPhone Apps

We’re close to a change here. A view shift. The powers that be in everything from Fortune 500 companies to local mom and pop corner shops are drinking the kool aid that is Twitter and Facebook. And I think in large, that’s good for business and good for the economy. As long as we keep it honest, and real when it comes to producing content.

Last month at the TEDx Manhattan Beach conference I listened to a 12-year-old app developer speak with confidence and knowledge about youth and technology. This month at Blog World Expo LA, I listened to online professionals from all over the world discuss the state of the blogsphere. There’s a lot of talent out there, a lot of producers, a lot of consumers. The trick is not to be all things to all people. Better yet, there is no trick. Be real.

“I think my job will probably not exist in 5 years,” — New York Times’ Social Media Editor Liz Heron

While I doubt that the same platforms and services we currently have will exist in the years to come, I believe the industry is poised for growth; the medium will evolve and keep incorporating social media into e-commerce. Instead of automation, I think humans will continue to sit behind monitors.

“I think what’s really up in the air, and more to what Liz Heron was saying, is that with the flux in newsrooms and technology, that role may be way different in 5 years time,” I wrote Oct. 28th on the Nieman Lab blog post.  “I think Heron’s comment (“My job won’t be around in 5 yrs”) may have been slightly tongue-in-cheek and said for effect, but that’s not to say she doesn’t really believe that. 5 years ago social media managers/ entrepreneurs were few and far between. Now there are many. Have we finished evolving? Not by a long shot …..”

Through the magic of Twitter, I spoke with Liz Heron about her comments. She said there “will always be jobs for those who understand new forms of communication. In 5 years, who knows what they will be?”

Good answer, Liz.

—Adam Popescu

I examine the industry today with a background on the history of how social media has evolved to become a journalistic tool, the ethics and technology at play, modes of communication between online and print media, and current and future trends industry professionals see developing.

The following are a list of working professionals interviewed for this months-long investigative project:

1. Ryan Sholin, Director of News Innovation at Publish2
2. Michael Foley, journalist at Desert Sun/ content editor for Waggener Edstrom Worldwide/ social media expert
3. Rob Petersen, President/Founder BarnRaisers llc
4. Jay Adams, new media director for the Atlanta Falcons
5. Brenton Garen, former online video director, staff writer, Beverly Hills Courier, current Editor-In-Chief of the Santa Monica Daily Mirror
6. Amanda Peabody, former staff writer, assistant editor, Beverly Hills Courier
7. Abbey Hood, former news editor, Beverly Hills Courier
8. Sydne Summer, Fashion Editor at the Style Network’s mystyle.com & Editor-in-Chief of ThinkThruFashion
9. Erik Pedersen, senior editor at E! Online
10. Israel Lemus, online editor LAmag.com
11. Dorrine Mendoza, online content producer for North County Times
12. Tommy Tung, contributor to Juxtapoz Magazine
13. Josh Gross, Sports Illustrated mixed martial arts reporter
14. Chad Graham, social media and search engine optimization editor, azcentral.com and The Arizona Republic
15. Vicki Higgins, online producer for LA INC. (official tourism bureau for Los Angeles)
16. Pia Christensen, content manager, editor, Association of Health Care Journalists
17. Sumaya Kazi, CEO of @YoProCo. Award-Winning Entrepreneur. Former Sr. Social Media Manager at Sun, social media strategist
18. John Paul Aguiar, Blogger, Internet Entrepreneur, Social Media strategist
19. Lilliam Rivera, executive editor at Mondette.com
20. Justin Germino, Technology Manager, Blogger/Poet @dragonblogger
21. Robert Caruso, Founder & CEO Fondalo Inc.
22. Wendy Sullivan, web copywriter and journalist
23. Robert Hays, software development manager at DIRECTV
24. David Cohn, founder Spot.us
25. Richard Myer, former editor LA magazine, The Los Angeles Times
26. Larry King, former host of CNN’s Larry King Live
27. Dee Stewart, Owner of DeeGospel PR
28. Tanner Stransky, editor entertainment weekly & ew.com
29. David Politis, President of Politis Communications, a full-service PR/IR/Marcom agency focused on clients in the “green,” high-tech and life science/biotech industries
30. Jennifer Sheppherd, online producer for the Orlando Sentinel
31. Nic Wirtz, freelance Latin American journalist
32. Angela Kim, associate producer, Marketplace, American Public Media
33. Craig Newmark, owner, founder of Craigslist.com
34. Kim Bui, social media and community editor at KPCC
35. Ian Hill, community engagement specialist for KQEDnews.org in San Francisco