Feb 19 2009
You can’t get the social media genie back into the bottle
Earlier this week we attended the San Francisco/Silicon Valley Social Media Club at the headquarters of Loopt, a location-based tech company in Mountain View. The focus on the evening’s meeting was how social media is adding transparency to local and federal government.
On the panel moderated by J.J. Toothman a Web strategist for Stanford, were Ariel Waldman, former Independent consultant for NASA; David Canepa, City Councilman in Daly City; Evan Ratliff, writer for Wired Magazine; and Veronica McGregor , who manages the Mars/Rovers Twitter account.
There’s no doubt that social networking is becoming a potent tool and resource for journalists, despite corporate and government bloggers and twitterers occasionally being bruised, gagged, or commanded to “stay on message.” The word WILL get out. You ain’t gonna push the toothpaste back into the tube.
Russ Johnson, my husband, writes a fascinating article about journalism icon Izzy Stone and this new age of increasing freedom of data and sources online. You can read about his take on social media and the third estate here: http://connectedtraveler.com/wordpress/2009/02/18/izzy-stone-and-social-media/.
