Funny how when #BlueSky got the first few thousand accounts all of tech media immediately started tripping one over another covering it and getting a collective aneurysm. :blobcatroll:
Meanwhile, #Threadiverse gets ~70k accounts over 2 weeks, and (with the fine exception of #Techdirt) not a peep. :blobcatgiggle:
@rysiek all hail our savior Jack Dorsey. We know he's creating a good social network now, because he is rich , rich from creating the shittiest social network in existence... Which makes him not shitty but good
@rysiek Without pseudo-exclusive scarce invites, there is no reason to feel smug and elitist about being there. Might have been an important driving factor.
@rysiek@schmittlauch I do not believe in this theory. I assume it’s mostly out of tech journalist’s preferences. They aren’t on FB or that immersed in IG, they are on Twitter and read about Dorsey’s Bluesky.
BTW, haven’t found the Techdirt article, could you send a link?
@rysiek@schmittlauch Ah! Misunderstanding! I assumed #Threadiverse refers to the name of Meta’s P92 project (assumed "Thread"), but you mean the Reddit-alikes.
@rysiek so, bit of a tangent, but: this reminds me of an exchange I had with somebody regarding whether reddit was done-for, or would retain a core user-base. The comparison was immediately made to twitter, which especially journalists have been reticent to depart. I countered that reddit had never been a hangout for journalists the way Twitter was, so it may indeed be Digg-ing itself. So, the point is, I find it interesting that, when you compared the press-coverage of the "Twitter Replacement" with that of the "Reddit Replacement", it turns out that of course the journalists had aneurysms over the former but not the latter.
@rysiek
Mapping 1-to-1 to what they knew worked before vs "instance?", "Can't retoot?", "Real timeline?", "no single entity to take me by the hand and feed me press ready statements"?
@whereisk oh yeah, how dare I expect of tech media some basic competency and willingness to learn in order to better explain perhaps somewhat unfamiliar concepts to their readers! 🙄
@rysiek And Mastodon is adding 60k users per day. I don't think it's one to one comparison though, Twitter has much more varied crowd, from politicians to influencers, whereas Reddit is one entry in long line of geeky-sites like Digg and Slashdot was. Naturally coverage of Twitter alternatives is more interesting to media.
@rysiek@jeff Media relations is more than just sending press releases. It's a partnership with media, where you work with them to make sure they are aware of what's newsworthy for your clients. For example, is there anything particularly interesting happening in a particular Mastodon community? You can't expect a reporter to be tracking them all.
@williamgunn I don't know, I tend to think that newsworthy stuff is newsworthy not just because some corporate media relations person put them in front of a journalist.
I would much prefer media to be properly funded in a way that reporters do have the time to seek out newsworthy stuff on their own, instead of relying on "partnerships" with media relations teams.
I understand the plight of media workers, I write for a popular news portal in Poland sometimes. But this is just backwards.
@rysiek@jeff I get where you're coming from. The issue is that newsworthiness isn't something that's "out there", an objective truth about the world that everyone would recognize when they see it. Even if it was, there's just so much out there to see.
Imagine you're arriving in a new city. You'll want to get out among the locals and get a feel for yourself what it's like, and also a few tips from a knowledgeable resident are nice to have, right?
@rysiek There's still just so much happening that it's helpful for people to get pointers, but the main point is what I wrote above: newsworthiness isn't an objective property out there that just needs to be seen. A conversation with an expert, such as a media relations professional who knows both the topic and what reporters are looking for, can help a journalist engage with a subject so the salient aspects become apparent. Companies have these people, the #fediverse does not.
@rysiek Your experience may have been different, but most journalists that I work with don't limit themselves to what's put in front of them. They do appreciate relevant tips from a trusted source.
@williamgunn great. Which brings us back to my original toot then. Because "fedi needs a media relations team" does not absolve journalists of failing to notice that r/Piracy moved 12k subscribers to Lemmy in a week, for example.
@rysiek Yes, they should be more on top of this stuff, and also organizations that have a dedicated media relations person will get more coverage because journalists literally can't be on top of everything about an organization (or federation) the way an employee or communications firm with them as a client can be.
@williamgunn I understand that if fedi had a media relations team, it would get more traction in the media.
But I am saying that this is still a failure on part of the people covering tech. They get co-opted, funneled, or whatever you want to call it, towards the stories that do have a media relations team behind them.
It's as if I was saying "public transit is kinda crappy here, takes me an hour to get to work" and your response was "just buy a car." Not a solution to the wider problem.
@rysiek I understand what you're saying. You'd like to fix a bigger issue. You're also talking more about what ought to be and I'm talking about what is.
I tend not to agree that what is implies anything about what should be, and at the same time, if I owned a store with high-quality products but no salespeople and was being outsold by a store with poorer quality products, I wouldn't blame the customers.
@williamgunn fedi is not a store. It's not a commercial endeavor. It's a social club with a lot of fun people. Fedi is not looking for VC funding and is not trying to attract customers. It's just building it's own fun space.
Note that my original toot did not lament anything. It started with "funny" and ended with a giggling blobcat emojo.
Fedi was here before Google+, and is here four years after it shuttered. Tech media decides to ignore it at its own peril. And that's, you know, funny. 😺
@williamgunn in other words, I am not trying to "fix" any "bigger issue" with my silly toot that started this thread.
I am just having a heartily laugh at the expense of self-important media outlets who consider themselves "the tech media" and yet — as you so clearly argued throughout this thread — struggle to write about anything that is not brought^Wpointed out to them by a "media relations" person. :blobcatgiggle:
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