The onset of digital media has enabled communication, information, and news to flow quicker than ever before. The sheer velocity of information has had devastating effects on the newspaper industry (at least the printed elements) and consumers have changed their behavior to adapt.

No longer do we have to wait until the 11pm local newscast to find out what happened in our city. We don’t even have to respect the anchorperson’s request to stay tuned until after the commercial break to hear about a news story. We can just go to any number of websites to get that news before that brief break is over.

When an online news source breaks some piece of information (with our without fact-checking), blogs swoop in to comment, and news aggregator (i.e. Digg) users vote stories up, and they become ‘the news’. And the more news becomes endorsed by the people reading it, the more ‘true’ it feels. Fact-checked or not.

I recently saw a panel at SXSW on the online behavior of teens and tweens, and when a few of the teenaged panelists mentioned that they got their news from Digg, it made me shudder. As great of a tool as Digg is for finding interesting pieces of online content, it’s not a news source. Just an ‘interesting content’ recommendation engine.

But even journalists and professional bloggers use recommendation engines. They’re out there; techmeme is an example. And sometimes those recommendation engines are other journalists and bloggers. In this new era of online journalism, these recommendations have become known as ‘memes’. Wikipedia defines a ‘meme’ as consisting of any unit of cultural information, such as a practice or idea, that gets transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another. Examples include thoughts, ideas, theories, practices, habits, songs, dances and moods and terms such as race, culture, and ethnicity. Memes propagate themselves and can move through a “culture” in a manner similar to the behavior of a virus.

While memes often reflect important topics, they also have the potential to create stagnant monologues that doesn’t necessarily get us anywhere — eventually just turning what should be solution-deriving conversations, into noise. That’s when memes make the leap from becoming units of cultural information and legitimate conversation to being momentum-generated waves of propaganda. Or, as I will business cliche-ify, memeoganda.

What used to be called ‘trend pieces’ are now being ripped from the headlines of blogs and even other publications. The biggest culprits tend to be traditional (especially print) media, and overzealous bloggers (in fact, I randomly stumbled upon this post by Mark Evans on the topic of blog topics via Techmeme) looking to capitalize on popular conversations/memes.

When journalists in traditional publications stop having original things to say, or just have the same ruminations on existing problems without offering up solutions, we get classic memeoganda. Lately, I’ve seen examples of memoganda regarding the ad industry ranging from the ‘death of ad networks’ to ‘facebook’s demise’ to ‘google click volume’ to ‘the death of the music industry’ to even the state of the economy/recession.

These trend pieces get written so quickly and so close to each other, that while they may raise awareness of important topics, they water down the depth of the coverage, and result in a stream of ‘also-ran’ stories.

I started writing this blog post last night, and right on cue, this morning Techcrunch tells us about a new startup called Publish2 that will make memoganda even easier by providing journalists and newsrooms with their own Digg-like resource for finding out what’s hot.

You know, maybe it’s just me, but I yearn for the days when journalists broke hot stories rather than write about stories that are already hot. Memeoganda is sucking the life out of investigative journalism and seems to be more about finding new and exciting ways to conjure up ad inventory than to publish content with depth and meaning. And while stories that yield more ad inventory (read: linkbaiting) can be good bottom-line revenue band-aid, they are not the solution to mainstream journalism’s woes.

The long-term answer is to strive to be the best at what you do. Break the news that matters. Investigate the broken news deeper. Don’t fall prey to the easiness of spreading memeoganda.

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So just saw a Sprint ad on TV featuring Dan Hesse, the CEO of Sprint, telling me about how Sprint is revolutionizing wireless networks and communication.

At the end of the spot, the flash Mr. Hesse’s ‘email address’, dan@sprint.com. I’ll save you the time wondering what happens if/when you email that address. Here’s the response you get:

Thank you for taking the time to write to me. There are a lot of exciting changes going on here at Sprint. To really revolutionize wireless as we know it, we need your input. It’s so important that we hear from the people out there who are using our phones every day so we can provide the best service.
I would like to take the time to read your email carefully and respond. In the meantime, don’t hesitate to check out the details of our new Simply Everything plan at www.sprint.com/everything. A representative from my office will be contacting you in about a week.

Thanks again,
Dan Hesse
CEO Sprint

And what kind of response does this generate? I’ve been checking the interwebs for people’s reactions, and this one seems to be representative of the general sentiment:

Granted, it would have been at least a nice touch to use my actual name as the salutation…or to even at least have a salutation. Would have at least created the illusion that another person was on that side of the email, rather than some stupid computer program.

Ah well…just like Sprint. They take one step forward with their advertising, but 2 steps back when it comes to actually responding to people directly. I guess the saying is true: the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The only thing worse than not moving towards a more transparent relationship with your customers is only going part of the way.

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There’s been so much talk about Modernista!’s new ultra-web 2.0 website (or lack of a site at all). It’s taken me a while to get around to discussing it, but here goes…

Take a moment to visit Modernista!’s new site.

So basically, what the site is doing is using all the tools that exist at the web’s disposal to turn people on to the agency.

Honestly, most of it works like a charm. I really do like it, even though the problem with using search results to provide information is that so many people have been commenting on Modernista!’s new site, that most results are talking their own site launch rather than the work they do for their clients (which is a narcissism problem that plagues many creative agencies out there, and search results only shine a light on that).

Max Kalehoff provides a really good overview of the site today over at MediaPost.

The thing with this site though, is that while it does a great job of talking about press and showing off stills and bookmarks, it doesn’t tell me about strategy. Or case studies (everyone always asks me for those). Maybe it’s because we’re also a media agency, but there’s got to be a way to tell the agency’s story with personality, without going completely ethereal or puking Flash.

We’re working on a new official site for Deep Focus, and are going to be doing some interesting things with it. Believe it our not, we’ve had the same site design for about 4 years. Hey — it’s been really busy around here.

Stay tuned for an official launch announcement, but hats off to Modernista! for getting us thinking about official agency websites again.

In the meantime, if you’ve got ideas for us to use for our website, just let me know. I’m listening.

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YouTube (as I first broke the news on weeks ago) has officially launched their tools to analyze video views, subscriptions, etc. It’s missing a bunch of things that will make it more useful such as referrals, but apparently those are coming.

Check out NewTeeVee’s coverage here.

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Spotted on an traffic light on 16th/6th Avenue in Manhattan (click image to see larger version):

This was 2 blocks away from Google’s Chelsea offices.

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Follow my tweets (yes, via Twitter) on Thursday, 3/27 as I attend the PSFK Conference in New York. Believe it or not, I’m not speaking at this event. Just listening. And Twittering.

What’s PSFK you ask?

On Thursday March 27, PSFK hosts a day of trends, inspiration and creative ideas. Designed to fuel creative professionals, the conference features speakers and topics that have been thoughtfully selected from a wide range of industries.

The day will include an interview with Eric Ripert (the NYC based chef with three Michelin stars) on how he finds inspiration to continually update his menus and brand; to a review of social media and the creative opportunities that it presents, to an exploration of New York culture; to an insight into how collaborative co-working is fueling a diverse range of businesses including NASA and Etsy.com; to a session exploring solutions for the challenges faced by three charities sponsored by the Art Directors Club.

Want to get an idea about what will happen? The video below is a slightly quirky extract from the event in 2007.

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24/7 Wall Street posts a list and analysis of the top 25 most valuable blogs.

Here are the first 12:

1. Gawker Media: $150 Million

2. MacRumors: $85 Million (Think this is ridiculous? Check out the traffic)

3. HuffingtonPost: $70 Million

4. PerezHilton: $48 Million

5. TechCrunch: $36 Million

6. ArsTechnica: $15 Million

7. SeekingAlpha: $15 Million

8. Drudge Report: $10 Million

9. Mashable: $10 Million

10. GigaOm: $8.4 Million

11. BoingBoing: $8 Million

12. Silicon Alley Insider: $5.4 Million

Read Silicon Alley Insider’s POV here, and check out the original post on 24/7 Wall St. here.

These are some crazy numbers. Many of these blogs have little to no overhead.

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I’ll be sending tweets (that’s messages from Twitter for you layfolk) from the MySpace ‘upfront’ event on Wednesday (3/26) starting at 2:30 or so. Follow me at http://www.twitter.com/ischafer to get scoopage (except for a brief 30 minutes when I have to jump on a call — clients first, you know).

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According to Download Squad, today, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Google announced the formation of the OpenSocial Foundation.

The Foundation is a ‘non-profit’ entity aimed at ensuring ‘…open and transparent governance of the OpenSocial specifications and intellectual property.’

Is it me, or does it seem weird that you can set up a non-profit entity that is designed to support the initiatives of a very ‘for profit’ company like Google? It seems that the efforts are noble enough, but still, these are Google standards, no matter how many third-parties are involved.

Do we have a choice but to choose between Google’s and Facebook’s standards? Time will tell.

Visit Download Squad for the nice little recap.

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AgencySpy asked:

“Hey, Ian? What’s the mission statement for Deep Focus when approaching social media? The definition of social media and its associated technology is always being debated, so what are you defining that as? What are you offering clients and what are you working on right now?”

And I responded with a diatribe that started with:

“We believe that Social Media is actually a medium within a medium. Social Media is not search, nor is it direct response, nor is it ‘branding’ or ‘awareness’. This is a medium where most of, if not all content is created by the people that use it. It is involvement. Passion. Influence. Passive and active recommendations. Connectivity. Collaboration. Our simplest definition of Social Media is any area of a digital experience where a majority of the content is either created or influenced by users. There is a very different set of consumer behaviors that occur when reading, writing, or responding to a blog post, or sharing thoughts, actions, and experiences via social networks. Social media is dificult-to-control participatory media, which makes it an environment that makes advertisers uncomfortable.

And you know what? Good.

Uncomfortable situations have the potential to bring out the best in us. They can keep us on our toes. They can sharpen our communication skills. They can improve our relationships by understanding what got us into those awkward relationships to begin with. Advertisers that can accept that they are in an uncomfortable relationship with their customers (and want to improve those relationships) are the ones that are most ready for a foray into Social Media.”

Want a good look under the hood at Deep Focus? Read the rest by clicking here.

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