Anyway, WordPress 2.8 is here and the best way to sort of highlight it and what it is and how the back end works (and all the new features) is to post their video about it. I’ve already updated easily 50% of the sites I have running WordPress with it (and it takes about 2 seconds to do, which is another nice feature of it).  Even on a complicated site like www.hazardassembly.com, with all sorts of crazy plugins (for example the site’s entire login feature is powered by vbulletin for example off a completely different database) it upgraded flawlessly and effortlessly.

Here is the video explaining it all.  For the tech geeks out there, enjoy!

From The Festival Awards Page about it:

“For the Documentary Competition top honor, the jury selected Ondi Timoner’s We Live in Public from the 16 films in the U.S. Documentary category. Timoner’s second Grand Jury Prize (she won in 2004 for Dig!) is the story of the Internet’s revolutionary impact on human interaction portrayed through the perspective of Josh Harris, the web maverick notorious for his experimental public art projects.”

I posted this on another site about it: 

“This week at the Sundance Film Festival, a film called “We Live in Public” won the Grand Prize Jury Award from the festival, the festival’s highest documentary prize. The film is about the future of the Internet and how it will develop, via use of social media.

It’s told through the story of the Internet pioneer Josh Harris, founder Jupiter Research/Media Metrix [now Forrester Research]; Pseudo.com , etc. There is no doubt that Harris (for those of you who are aware of his story) is questionable, as are his techniques. The film does not shy away from this, it actually tells the story of a very compromised man.

Variety writes this about him, in this excellent review about it:

An intensely immersive, even draining film, “We Live in Public,” which doubles as a short history of the Internet, is technically tops on every level — including its volume. Much of the film is set to an ear-splitting cacophony of moody pop-rock, as befits a character as loud and abrasive as Harris.

This said, he has actually has been able to forecast the Internet (and specifically, how users of the Internet will use it) with tremendous effectiveness, and at least 10 years ahead of the curve.

The story and conclusions and specific conclusions are about exactly the Internet we are starting to see via the increasing onset of social media: youtube, blogging, microblogging, facebook/myspace, etc.

The film just premiered so it will be some time before you can see it if you haven’t. I would say this movie is a mandatory see for anyone mildly interested in social media, particularly any developer. If you are a netflix subscriber, you can add the movie to your que and it will mail it to you when it’s released. Otherwise pay attention and when it comes out make sure you check it out.

Also, as crazy as it sounds it’s also very applicable to Burning Man. I’m currently making efforts to possibly screen it at Burning Man a few times if I can get a copy and they’ll allow me to.”

Relevant Links:
Cinematical Review of main character and director
Cinematical Podcast Recorded Interview

To summarize my own social marketing experience, I have been in social environments since about 1999 but am new to paying attention to a blogosphere of social marketing experts.  I am small potatoes, but I own my own forum, am developing several others, and have been paying attention to social media and it’s core characteristics for a long time.  Likewise, several of my campaigns in social marketing environments have had what I consider to be tremendous successes for small businesses, and I have repeated these successes several times.

My conclusion?  Many so-called social media experts have no idea what they are talking about.  They hardly understand social media and it’s core principles.  Their focus on Twitter, again, is an excellent example.

Social media is like asking a question with 3,000 people in the room.  Software is the moderator.  As the discussion goes on, those who enjoy the discussion keep coming back. Eventually tell their friends about it, the awesome experiences they had, and what have been able to learn.  They also enjoy the environment of providing information for free, and learning themselves.

However, what occurs in communities is what I call parrots. I believe this is what Peter Kim calls “reverb” and others are calling an “echo chamber.”   These people start repeating the information whether correct or not for the sake of sounding knowledgeable to their peer and to increase their own “standing” in the community.  They are basically caught in the playing of the social media game themselves.  Kim refers to it as “ego trap“  and this is excellent terminology.  These so-called social media experts appear to be unable to hop on the fence once in a while and take a gander at the shape of  it as it grows, they’re just meandering through the hallways like the users themselves.

Interestingly, in my social media experiences I’ve found as more people started to enter the room the quality of information is enhanced.  Once fully realized, it not only enhanced but soars, provided the community itself is managed correctly.  Likewise the parrots are snuffed out.  To make a conclusion about the blogoshere of social media experts, it appears that it’s in its infancy itself.

Here are a some examples of quality of information from online communities:

• Mountain bike technology has taken leaps and bounds since 1999, primarily with input from social communities.  My belief is that the “29er movement” was directly born out of the social media group Mountain Bike Review, with its active community of 25,000 members.  Today, almost every manufacturer now makes a 29er model,  but two years ago it was hardly on radar.  Many interpret the rise of the 29er as big companies “getting caught with their pants down.”   Smaller, trendier companies started beating out bigger companies because they were paying attention.  A side affect: the boutique builder also became mainstream as a result.   Opps! This is why I personally own a Ventana over a Trek or Specialized. And guess what, it’s a superior product as well.  Interestingly, many bike company owners, senior bike company execs, and other key decision makers are now on the MTBR forums.
• This poster identifies a $25 part that has played havoc with diesel Ford Excursions and Superduties and their other widely known reliability problems.
• This poster creates panic or possibly identifies what is wrong with Suunto watches or their customer service.
• I plan to post a summary about how Toyota used the IH8MUD.com community to develop its marketing programs for their FJ Cruiser.  For a quick summary, view the full profile for Brian Swearingen on LinkedIn (make sure you’re logged in and click link for ‘full profile.”

I disagree that ‘social media will not change the world.’  We’ve already seen the slopes distrust of traditional media. Ultimately I believe social media sites can be such a killer information source that ultimately it will replace traditional media as we know it, particularly print media.  This is primarily related to speed and that 3000 or 6000 or however many enthusiasts is always > than a paid using the journalistic technique.  I like journalism.  My old man is a journalist and I have even been one myself.  This said, anyone who’s been interviewed or quoted for a newspaper article can tell you the journalistic technique is flawed.  It leaves too much room for bias, much like the Cultural Anthropological technique (I have a degree in Cultural Anthropology).

At this point, we are basically just waiting for the systems, software, and architecture to catch up.  Likewise, we are also waiting for renewed faith in social media, as an information source, because of so many years of the data from unreliable infant communities because of the damage parrots have been able to create.  Social media, and it’s conclusions, are not trustworthy.

And that example is, again, the social media expert community seems to me absurdly focused on Twitter and Facebook, probably related to their high growth numbers.  My conclusions on Facebook? I don’t pretend to be an expert on facebook, in the slightest, and probably never will be.  I believe facebook’s an excellent environment that will be long lasting and I enjoy it myself, considerably.  But I also believe it is so personal that I there are so many other social environments that can provide much greater ROI.  For example, if you produce dishwashing machines, you will probably have better results with marketing in an online community oriented to home improvement.  You have already heard my criticisms of twitter.

In the meantime, the industry seems to have forgotten its core.  My belief is it’s core has evolved into online forums and topic based communities.  This is also what makes my interest in Ning and WetPaint‘s architecture so interesting.  My understanding of the genealogy of this core is:

usenet groups (the origin of ebay, for example) > listserves > forums

These were all here long before facebook and twitter, and forums (it’s current-day iteration) appear to be thriving.  But their not “whales” (or at least don’t outwardly appear to be, until you actually take the time/effort to market in them) so no one is paying attention to them.   However, when you add the membership of the top 20 forums alone, you have over 85 million registered members.  That is 1 in every 70 people on the planet.  Not to mention the thousands upon thousands of independent forums beyond these.

I feel that much of modern ‘social media’ draws its roots from this, but it’s also skipped a beat.  Likewise, Ning in particular hasn’t quite 100% figured it our either.  It has great architecture but way too much emphasis on ‘the social’ and not enough on ‘the data’ of sites oriented by topic.  As a result, most of these technologies appeal to the technological enlightened (including the social media ‘expert’ community, and people willing to take greater risks with their time and personality online), but not the mainstream.

“Something’s not right” and the question will be how long until the social media community itself develops (the maturity) to figure this out.