DISQUS

Great post! The last section was especially good. I also feel like social media has become a bit prideful across the board....

In response to a few of the other comments, in no way did I take this to be flaming "right-wing." The author clearly pointed to Obama's smear campaign, Palin just happens to be more relevant this week. Furthermore, who cares what the author's political affiliation is? That's not the point. The man had to give examples to contribute to the larger point of this article--and he said "a few examples from today" not "a few examples from the last 3 months." Seriously, that Palin photo is ridiculous (as is Obama being accused of being an Islamic Terrorist).

@Bratton: You said: "The point: surely Mashable! does not mean to insinuate that Robert P. Murphy of all people is exemplary of the kind of expert information we should champion? Surely."

You're right. I don't think that's what "Mashable!" was saying at all. I read this post to say that, regardless of your beliefs on this--or any other--issue; we the "social-media" are lazy fact checkers, and start groups/threads based on emotion and partisanship rather than factual info (no different than 'real life' I suppose). The point wasn't whether the article was correct, the point was that it's a peer reviewed article by an 'expert' and we flippantly disregard it with a quick three sentence comment--if we even read it. And, as the author mentioned, because people trust their friends first, facts can be too quickly disregarded.

@Crunkfish: You said: "until the mainstream news channels and tabloids (and politicians for that matter) are held accountable for the lies and mistruths of sensationalist journalism and the unwashed masses start questioning the spin and thinking for themselves (I can always dream!), I don’t see why an unpaid blogger writing about what amuses and excites them should be held to higher standards than the professionals."

You just proved the author's point. "Until we, the unwashed mases start questioning spin." That's what this author is suggesting we do, and he is suggesting we do it with social media. What better tool to begin with?

Thanks! I'm using both Twitter and Friend Feed, and I've been looking for some ways to further integrate the two. My biggest problem with Friend Feed, is that a lot of my Twitter friends aren't on Friend Feed, so I have to track both apps separately. Any ideas?

Hey Nick. You ask the question if this will reduce the attractiveness of social ads. I'm of the opinion that social ads aren't attractive in the first place. I understand they're a growing demographic; but I have yet to see them prove to be efficient ROI. How about you?

Thanks very much! Solid article. I'm continually shocked at how many people forget about internal traffic.

Really good summation.

Cheers.

Hey Joel. Thanks for putting this on the blog! Such a great spot....

Josh @ Viget