Of Note
The following article has nothing to do with real estate, but I have long encouraged real estate agents to study marketing publication Advertising Age to improve their business, therefore, given today’s events, I have a need to distance myself from this type of blatant disregard for fact and for insulting religious bashing.
Twitter Socialism
Today’s Advertising Age article entitled “The Coming End of YouTube, Twitter and Facebook Socialism,” author Simon Dumenco reveals an offensive amount of ignorance and uses a misinformed point of view to make what could have been an incredible point. Â Dumenco aims to convince readers that the millions of dollars pumped into revenue-less models like Twitter equates to socialism and I can’t say I disagree.
SO what’s the problem?
In an era of the informed consumer, journalistic disgrace is easier to spot and for years, columnists have gone unchecked, until now. Now, I can research anything a columnist says as fact or fiction and when fiction is expressed either as opinion or as fact, it is insulting to the social media audience who is not only well informed, but is prepared to talk about misinformation they are being force fed.
After reading Dumenco’s article for the seventh time, I couldn’t get past several of his assertions, let’s see if you can pin point the problem in this excerpt:
“Last week, according to the Times of London, Cardinal Sean Brady of Ireland told the country’s Catholics to ‘Make someone the gift of a prayer through text, Twitter or e-mail every day. Such a sea of prayer is sure to strengthen our sense of solidarity with one another.’
Oh, my. That’s a nice sentiment, but Twitter really doesn’t need more users around the world tweeting in ways that can never be monetized.”
Did you catch that last line? Users “tweeting in ways that can never be monetized” is a bad thing? Oh, forgive us all for using a social network to NETWORK SOCIALLY. I guess Dumenco’s Twitter timeline which consists of nothing more than links to what he’s reading at the moment is superior to being social (aka having a dialogue) in a social network.
It gets worse…
Dumenco opined with his last statement and that’s fine, we’re all entitled to our own opinion- he’s against non-monetized tweets (although I’m not clear how he has monetized his own). But he goes on to say:
“Fortunately, given how retro-conservative Pope Benedict is, he seems more likely to issue a papal encyclical condemning Twitter. We all know it’s more likely to enable sin — pride! sloth! — than piety.“
This is the point in the article where I was insulted. Forget the religious implications, this journalist clearly doesn’t know his facts and like I said- in the era of the informed consumer, that’s the cardinal sin of journalism.
Know your facts before you speak
The Vatican has always embraced technology, dating back to pamphlet distribution at early onset of print publication, to the Vatican Radio station launch in 1931 all the way to modern web technologies. The Pope publicly said in 2006 that technology should be embraced to “spread the good news” and has had live broadcasts of his addresses for years. SInce launching the Vatican YouTube channel in January, 159 videos are already uploaded and Pope Benedict encourages others to use social media to network around common human interests, to support others and to do good works through social networking.
In January, Pope Benedict said, “I am conscious of those who constitute the so-called digital generation and I would like to share with them, in particular, some ideas concerning the extraordinary potential of the new technologies, if they are used to promote human understanding and solidarity. These technologies are truly a gift to humanity and we must endeavour to ensure that the benefits they offer are put at the service of all human individuals and communities, especially those who are most disadvantaged and vulnerable.” That’s a far cry from condemnation.
Insulting our intelligence is never a good idea
This faux pas could have been equally offensive even if written about Budism, Hinduism, the Muslim faith, etc…. aside from the religious implications, as a columnist, Dumenco’s job is to know better than to shoot his mouth off without understanding the words being used or having any facts to back up his opinion. I’ve unsubscribed from Advertising Age which before today I believed to be one of the best resources available for marketing data and analysis.
The aforementioned article is extremely offensive, and a Cardinal’s words of hope was twisted into an ignorant, misinformed assumption that is unbecoming of a “journalist.” The Palin bashing was tolerable, but Dumenco could have skipped the entire anti-Catholic sentiment and made an excellent point without it.
