Blogs, Tweets, Social Media, and the News Business

 Judging from their widespread adoption, it’s hard to find a technology that news organizations don’t embrace. Read the Los Angeles Times on Kindle. Watch ABC News on YouTube. Leave a comment on a blog about media and marketing from the Chicago Sun-Times. Listen to a podcast best social media marketing of “On Science” from National Public Radio. Participate in a discussion board hosted by The Washington Post about college admissions. Receive SMS news about the Dallas Cowboys from The Dallas Morning News. Get features from Time on a PDA and tweets of breaking news from CNN. The mantra for news organizations is to be anywhere, anytime, on any platform. But is this strategy really a good idea? In an era when the business models for news are stressed, hard thinking should be done in assessing the opportunities that various technologies present. It isn’t the time merely to be copying what others are doing. Tough questions must be asked to figure out which of the new technologies is beneficial for journalism and the business of journalism. Is each one equally useful? What are the real costs in staff time and the operating costs to be on the various platforms? What is actually achieved for the news organization in being there? Does every news organization need to be active on all of the platforms? Finally, how can a news organization achieve optimal benefit across platforms? The answers we find might lead to deciding which of these technologies to employ. Most importantly, the decisions reached will vary for different news enterprises based on their circumstances and needs. Methods for measuring and evaluating performance have to be developed. These should be used to track the effectiveness of any of these new approaches to determine whether the money spent and other resources used were warranted and whether the technology marketing by social media was effectively used. What are the effects on the print product? With online content? With the news organization, as a whole? Have existing products been supported or harmed? Have beneficial business opportunities emerged? Such managerial challenges posed by these technologies should not deter their use. There are, of course, risks also associated with a decision not to engage in some or all of these technologies. This is the time for neither inertia nor indecisiveness when it comes to making such decisions.

White House, Silicon Valley to hold summit on militants' social media use

Senior White House officials and U.S. intelligence and law enforcement figures will meet with Silicon Valley executives on Friday to discuss how to counter the use of social media by militant groups, sources familiar with the meeting said on Thursday. In an escalation of pressure on technology firms to do more to combat online propaganda from groups such as Islamic State, the meeting follows attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California, that underscored social media marketing the role played by social media companies such as Twitter Inc, Alphabet Inc’s YouTube and Facebook Inc. Invited participants include White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, presidential counterterrorism adviser Lisa Monaco, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, FBI Director James Comey, National Intelligence Director James Clapper and National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers, one of the sources said. A source familiar with the meeting said it would focus on social media content, not encrypted communications, another topic of discussion between Silicon Valley and the White House. Twitter, Apple Inc, Facebook and Google are attending, the companies said. Several other Internet firms, including Microsoft Corp and Dropbox, are expected to attend, according to those familiar with the meeting. Most companies are expected to send high-ranking executives, but not their chief executive officers. An administration announcement is expected following the conclusion of the summit, according to a source. Twitter last week updated its policies for policing its content to explicitly prohibit “hateful conduct.” Other websites have similarly updated and clarified their abuse policies within the past 18 months. The meeting agenda covers how to make it harder for militants to recruit and mobilize followers on social media, as well as helping ordinary users create, social media marketing strategy publish and amplify content that can undercut groups like Islamic State. The meeting also will touch on how technology can be used to disrupt paths to violent radicalization and identify recruitment patterns, and how to make it easier for law enforcement and intelligence agencies to identify militant operatives. The Obama administration “has been clear about the importance of government and industry working together to confront terrorism, but we do not have any specific meetings to announce or preview at this time,” a senior official said.

Cellphone number, social media led FBI to robbery suspect

The FBI zeroed in on a woman suspected in jewelry store robberies across the South after analyzing records from cellphone towers near the robberies, then checking social media and hearing from suspicious friends, newly filed court records reveal. Abigail Lee Kemp, 24, is due in court at noon Monday for a first appearance before a judge, FBI Special Agent Stephen Emmett said in an email. She was apprehended in the Atlanta suburb of Smyrna, Georgia, social media marketing plan along with a person who was with her at the time, the FBI said. Authorities haven't identified an alleged accomplice in the robbery spree, but court records say he acted as a lookout in some of the robberies. A key break in the case came from one phone number with a north Georgia area code, court records show. An analysis of cell tower data found that the number showed up at or near jewelry stories in Georgia, Florida and South Carolina while the businesses were being robbed, authorities said. Court records detail how authorities then used the phone number to identify Kemp as a suspect, and found a photo of a maroon Honda Civic on her social media accounts that matched the description of one seen in surveillance video. The FBI also released images from surveillance video from the robberies, which led Kemp's friends to contact authorities, court records show. The images showed a female dressed in a jogging suit in one robbery and wearing a black cowboy hat in another. "Within hours of issuing a press release this week requesting assistance in identifying the suspects, the FBI Jacksonville Division began to receive numerous credible leads from the public," the FBI said in a news release. "Some citizens further advised that during recent contacts with Kemp, she was wearing expensive jewelry that some of the callers believe she cannot afford," the court affidavit said. "Some citizens social media marketing companies also advised that Kemp possesses a black handgun and recently had her car painted black." Federal court records do not list an attorney for Kemp. Her arrest comes amid an investigation of jewelry store robberies last year in Sevierville, Tennessee; Bluffton, South Carolina; Panama City Beach, Florida; and Dawsonville and Woodstock in Georgia, FBI spokeswoman Amanda Warford Videll confirmed to The Associated Press via email.