How about this for making news outlets flocking to social media: I no longer get my first dose of news from a conventional journalist-type source, but from Facebook.
In the last month or so, I have found out on Facebook that:
1) Shaquille O'Neal is retiring.
2) Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Jackson died.
3) There was a tornado in MA, which hit very close to some of my family in CT.
4) The Vancouver Canucks won Game 1 of the Stanley Cup final.
5) A luxury candle company has a not-so-luxurious PR firm.
Okay, that last one just annoyed the heck out of me - I won a free candle on Facebook. I've won a lot of other stuff online too (I got a free bottle of Clinique skin tone evener on Twitter) because I'm kind of a troll that way, but the candle did not come to me for over a month. After speaking with the girl at the PR firm who handled it when the candle was two weeks late, still no candle by Memorial Day weekend - and I ended up copying the luxury candle company on my next email voicing my disappointment. I got an email from who I assume was the PR firm manager overnighting the candle to me. We'll see if it's on my doorstep for real by 3 p.m. today, but seriously? Aren't PR firms paid not to do this crap?
ANYWAY. The excitement in my life comes less from reading headlines and more from seeing what my friends are reporting. I can of course get the details from other news outlets, of course, but even Shaq took to Twitter to report his big news, and you know CNN had some peons watching Twitter feeds to report anything that might be newsworthy.
Isn't it strange how slowly, surely, the media middleman is becoming a periphery to our source of gossip and news instead of the center? I remember watching the 6 o'clock news every night with Peter Jennings when I was kid, right before Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! came on. Even more so, my parents would probably recall how they found out about the Challenger explosion through the TV; even back in 2001 when 9/11 happened, I heard about it on the radio first.
But not today. A measly 10 years after 9/11 and I no longer check CNN or BBC first; it's Facebook I go to catch up first, then review the news later. Granted, the gossipy-type news usually is filtered first through social media, not the international news or conflicts that many Americans don't choose or care to follow, but then again I have a social circle that does extend beyond the U.S., and I end up finding things that might be popular overseas before anyone here even knows about it. Amazing.
What else does social media bring me? A freaking ton of coupons, that's what. Any time I sign up for something, it's because I saw it on Facebook. ShoeDazzle, Ideeli.com, Sephora, Bluefly... this targeted ad stuff is really quite scary. I've been eying a dress for a few days and it kept coming up on every ad that I saw, no matter what website I'd go to. Eventually I got a coupon in my email and was able to purchase the dress for another 30% off, but still... how do you put on blinders to this stuff? At least we had an excuse to ignore billboards when we're driving down the thruway, but you can't avoid moving ads and audio clips when you're trying to read the news.
If you don't hear from me for another four months, just make sure I didn't get sucked into another ad vortex and am drowning in email special offers. If you'll excuse me, I need to sign up for email notifications from the newest partnership between Groupon and Expedia.
