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If you’ve used Twitter for awhile, you know that judging the influence of a Twitter user by their number of followers is a dicey proposition.  Lots of Twitter users are obsessed with their number of followers, and work to inflate their stats in ways too numerous to mention here.  The end result is that some Twitter users will have thousands of followers who consist mostly of other social media “experts” and spam Twitter accounts.  While the follower number may look impressive, these folks aren’t really influential because no one is listening.  A Twitter account with 100 engaged followers is much more influential than one followed by thousands of disengaged users.

I think Twitter Lists will end up helping separate the men from the boys when it comes to influence.  In addition to seeing a Twitter users follower count, we can now see the number of other Twitter users who have added them to lists (example to the right).  I would argue that getting added to a list is a bigger deal than simply getting someone to follow you.

People follow folks for lots of reasons.  Out of courtesy.  Because they like their avatar.  To get them to follow them back.  Adding someone to a list is more of an endorsement – you are saying this person is someone worth listening to.  While I’m sure people will now work to game their “lists” number, in the short term I think it provides a really interesting insight into how respected Twitter users are.

Along these lines, my colleague J.W. Crump from our ImpactWatch team posted an interesting look at the Top 100 Twitter User list.  He basically reordered the top users list to sort by the number of lists folks are on, as opposed to follower count.  I’ve copied the results below.  I take some comfort in the fact Barack Obama is the most listed user, as opposed to Ashton Kusher who is the most followed Twitter user, and that Kim Kardashian rank plummets in this view.

ImpactWatch Social Media Monitoring and Measurement – an Interview with Hannah Del Porto

Internet marketer Murray Newlands recently picked the brain of our very own Hannah Del Porto, who is one of the experts on our ImpactWatch media monitoring team.  You can read the interview here.

As you probably know by now, CNN launched a redesigned website yesterday.   While I like the look and feel, the thing that really strikes me about the new homepage is how little of it is devoted to news.  As you’ll see in the screen shot above, the far left column that I’ve highlighted in yellow is hard news while the rest of the page, which I have greyed out, is devoted to feature stories, ads and site features. 

As a frequent visitor, it seems to me that CNN site has been shifting for awhile towards feature stories/ lifestyle news and away from hard news.  With less than 1/3rd of the above the fold homepage devoted to national/world news, I think this new design is another big step in that direction.

It has been a tough year for a lot of people.  Non-profits have been hit particularly hard by the economic downturn, as folks who are normally very generous simply don’t have the resources to help out financially.

In an effort to help out in a small way, we’re pleased to announce “TBGives,” a contest that will award $10,000 in Internet consulting services to a non-profit organization, a registered 501(c)(3), in the metropolitan Washington, DC area. We’re looking to partner with an organization with a budget of less than one million dollars per year whose impact can be enhanced through the strategic use of technology.

For details and to apply, visit www.bivings.com/tbgives and please pass along information about the program to any group you think would benefit from partnering with TBG.

In the past we have profiled the innovative work of people like Adrian Holovaty who does some exciting things through programming that allow data to tell their own stories.  For instance, he set up the Campaign Tracker for the Washington Post, and he is now running his own site Everyblock – the database driven hyperlocal news site.  Further, in our newspaper studies we have examined how news organizations use the Internet.

While at the CIO Perspectives Forum here in Washington, DC last week, I was wondering about what kind of role CIOs should play at news organizations.  Their organizations may already use them as I am thinking (at least I hope).  However, it is important to note that in an October 2008 white paper titled “The CIO Profession: Leaders of change, drivers of innovation” IBM reports that most organizations mainly view and use CIOs as implementers and not as strategists.  Hopefully, news organizations turn to CIOs for planning and strategy and not just technical execution.  Of course, a CIO with a journalism background could help even more; Adrian Holovaty is so innovatively partly since he has a background in both programming and journalism.

If CIOs are involved in strategic planning, they can help the business and editorial staffers not only understand what is realistic, but they can also introduce them to new ideas that someone without technical expertise would know.  Further, a CIO could also identify potential problems and other issues in advance and help either avoid them or prepare other organizational stakeholders in advance. 

Here are a few examples of how a CIO can help news organizations strategically plan: 

• Broadcast journalists are now going out to the field with recording and editing equipment with fewer producers and camera people accompanying them.  Before such equipment and software is purchased, the CIO could help determine the requirements for such equipment and software and then help identify applicable products.
• A CIO with a decent understanding of database management could help find new application ideas like the ones that Adrian Holovaty has developed.
• During our newspaper studies we look at the website features that news organizations use by examining the different features (i.e. blogs, RSS feeds, video sections, etc.) they harness.  A CIO would have a valuable perspective on helping developing a strategic plan on what the organization’s website should do. Further, he or she she can help evaluate content management systems (CMS), applications, and vendors to determine how well they meet the organization’s needs and desires.
• A CIO can help an organization envision and deploy an API – like NPR’s API — which allows members of the public to use its data in interesting ways that the organizations itself did not image.  This is one way that a CIO can work with the business and editorial people at a news organization to help them find ways to profitably exploit an API.
• The CIO could help find ways to organize content for the public in many different ways.  For instance, tagging enables people to find information in ways other than the traditional divisions like News, Sports, International, etc.  In fact, The Guardian newspaper wanted a tag editor back in October 2007.  This would help make the news organization’s site more easy for the public to use.

These are just a few examples of aspects of journalism in which news organizations can turn to their CIOs for strategic planning, and considering the dire state of media companies, they can use all of the help that they can get.

How else can news organizations harness their CIOs to help strategically plan?

CNN is launching a new version of its website on Monday and previewed the site to select reporters yesterday.  Techcrunch has the full breakdown and a slew of screen shots. 

It is pretty much impossible to tell anything from the screen shots, but I’ll not let that stop me from making some superficial observations:

• As Kevin Anderson observed on Twitter, the new site moves away from the text heavy current design to what he describes as a more magazine-style layout. 
• CNN is clearly not worried any longer about folks on dial up.  The new site is very image and video heavy, and is clearly best experienced on a high speed connection.
• I like the white/red palette of the current site, and am not sure about this grey/beige color tone they seem to be going for.  Won’t really be able to judge that until we see the site in a browser, however.
• I’m  interested in seeing the NewsPulse feature, which is described as an “iTunes for news.”  Whatever that means.

I look forward to giving it a full look on Monday.

I’m at the CIO Perspectives Forum here in DC today, and I participated in an interesting lunch discussion.  This discussion focused on how organizations can better manage the content that they generate.  There were several interesting issues brought up – of which a few I’ll mention below.

First, what constitutes information that an organization needs to archive and classify?  While it is clear to save memos, proposals, spreadsheets, database, etc., what about instant message conversations or company-related tweets?  If these are worth managing, how does a company capture such data and place this data into place with more traditional items?

Second, related to capturing and indexing tweets and other social media communications, should companies restrict their employees from using social networks and social media sites?  Further, if an employee is a friend of a client on Facebook, should they defriend the client when they leave the company?  In the past, when you left a company there were policies about what departing employees could do with their Rolodexes, but what about now?  In fact, if employees are friends with clients on Facebook, the Rolodex is now public.  How can an organization use their employees’ connections with clients?  Should the organization take the cue from a client’s profile and take them skiing if the client lists skiing as an interest? 

Third, what is the value of an organization data mining its own data?  Several of our clients use our product ImpactWatch to monitor the media through data mining, but what if a company looked at its own data?  For instance, would data mining archived e-mails help reveal new ideas and solutions that are scattered through different conversations and people?  Could this capture ideas that people who are not connected with product development so that the company can exploit these ideas?  While there is clearly some privacy concerns, it is worth noting that individuals should expect that their company likely has the right to monitor their company-provided e-mail accounts.

These were some of the questions that we discussed.  We clearly did not come up with definite answers, but these are important issues and opportunities that organizations need to consider when dealing with their own data.

The Bivings Group is proud to work with the Washington Area Women’s Foundation, which held its annual leadership luncheon Tuesday. The luncheon featured more than 1,000 guests at Washington’s Grand Hyatt to recognize the supporters and partner organizations involved in the Foundation, all working to improve the lives of women and girls in the Washington metropolitan area.

Among other things, the luncheon showcased some of the Foundation’s most prominent leaders and key grantee partners. Journalists and mother-daughter team Cokie and Rebecca Roberts moderated a discussion with grantee partner organizations and some of the women who have benefitted from such projects.

Attendees also watched an animation created by the RP3 Agency, a creative partner of the foundation.