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- Sphinn It!
Went Hot: November 15, 2008 - 3:04 am
Posted By: bhartzer 232 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://www.onlinemarketer.com) my network
Category: Blogging
73 Comments
Who Sphunn This Topic?
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dannysullivan
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graywolf
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stick
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bhartzer
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BogglesMyMind
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bwelford
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UtahSEOpro
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iBrian
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netmeg
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aimClear
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MariosAlexandrou
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robwatts
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MarkBarrera
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SexySEO
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IncrediBILL
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MikeDammann
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hugoguzman
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wowdirectory
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sza
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meganion
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martin
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samdodd
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Coastal
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netgeek06
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vikramprashant
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monitis
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scbalazs
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thePuck
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JohnHGohde
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yetanotherben
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Firstwebsearch
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semo
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JohnCoronella
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socialbanner
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royalchallenger
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2advance
Who Desphunn This Topic what is desphinn?
rustybrick
11/14/2008 04:29am
KateMorris
11/17/2008 09:33pm
avi
11/14/2008 09:15am
morgret
11/13/2008 06:32pm
cre8pc
11/14/2008 08:46am
MattSiltala
11/14/2008 08:06am
Jill
11/13/2008 06:20pm
Ruud
11/13/2008 06:37pm
DarrenSlatten
11/13/2008 07:59pm
AnnieCushing
11/13/2008 02:29pm
Comments
I disagree with all of the points in the Sphinn summary, and in the post. The assertions that the posts are inaccurate and unedited are not backed up by anything, and in my observation, not at all true. Please show me where this post by Virginia on the BC blog is inaccurate, unedited, or useless. http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/archives/2008/10/advanced_keywor.html
I've liveblogged for Barry at SER at SES SJ and SMX West. I often ignore the Q&A so I can go back and clean up the post, add formatting, review what I've written, and still have it off to Barry within minutes of the end of the session. While I'm grabbing Advil and cookies between sessions, Lisa and Susan and Virginia are sitting there revising their posts for submission. I don't follow Michael's liveblogging, but I see that the post in question generated 25 comments -- pretty good for something that is inaccurate, unedited, and useful I'd say.
Last sentence should reading "pretty good for something that is inaccurate, unedited, and useless I'd say."
Actually, I was thinking of posting something similar last night -- though with a lot more respect for those who are live blogging. I do appreciate what they do.
But you see, I've been to many sessions where I've either spoke at or moderated, read the live blogging and come away amazed at what's missing or what wasn't reported correctly. Or Q&A doesn't get reported, even though that often is full of useful information, as well.
Even when the reporting is good -- and don't get me wrong, lots of it is -- I still don't feel like I get a good sense of the session or the most important takeaways.
When I was thinking of doing my own post about this, my plea was that perhaps we need less live blogging and more actual reporting out of a session. I remember when Chris Sherman used to assign coverage of sessions out of SES, for Search Engine Watch. We didn't live blog. We had someone do a report out of a session that was much more a narrative. It might appear a day or two or even a week later, but it was often far better than a live blogging account.
These days, there's no lack of people wanting to live blog. What we really need are people who will distinguish themselves by stepping back from the instant spew out of a session and instead take the time to digest, perhaps do some follow up and add in some resources.
In my comment, I hadn't wanted to get into the debate of if there should or should not be live blogging, what value it adds, and if it is in general good or bad. What I did take issue with was the premise is that all live blogging is inaccurate, unedited, and useless.
I agree, it's not the same as having a couple of days to go over a post, or even a couple of hours. There are some live blogging styles that are not real helpful if you didn't attend the session, but there are others that I star in my feedreader and go back to read later.
I would find it interesting to have a post with several perspectives about live blogging -- site owners who send live bloggers like Bruce Clay and Barry Schwartz, conference organizers like yourself, conference presenters (I know Rae Hoffman has strong opinions), and live bloggers like Lisa Barone and Tamar Weinberg.
I would respectfully disagree with the author's perspective. I was not able to attend Pubcon either and have been very appreciative of the live blogging efforts of those attending, especially Lisa Barone's.
I actually have a list of task items as a result of her blogging:
* Research how we could possibly use Facebook Connect to leverage better Facebook integration.
* Sign up for the Google Hot Trends feed to keep my finger on the pulse of which keywords in my industry are white hot.
* Download the FF Macros plugin to track Google Insights data.
* Research Delicious to excavate industry keywords that we may be overlooking.
* Stop allowing myself to be hamstrung by paralyzing perfectionism. (Elizabeth Archambault read my mail in that session. Reading about it on the WBP blog saved me the discomfort of wincing under the burden of self-revelation on that one. heh)
* Research how we can use widgets and iframes to keep people on our sites longer.
* Oh, and I already downloaded the WWSGD plugin that asks people to follow me when they visit my blog. Very cool.
Furthermore, I take issue with the leap of logic in the author's argument that live blogging is shoddy journalism. He alleges that the reporting from Pubcon is inaccurate but then, in the very next breath, concedes that he's not at the conference. So, in the spirit of journalistic integrity, his argument begs the quesion, how can someone not attending the conference be in a place to renounce reporting as inaccurate and subpar? If he had facts to back up his allegations, I'm sure he would have stated them in his post.
I also found it a bit ironic that he mentions the lack of editing on more than one occasion, yet his post is rife with grammatical errors. If you know grammar isn't your forte, it's probably best not to paint a target on your forehead and invite scrutiny. Just sayin'.
Here's a stunning idea - why not just *listen* to the presentation rather than try to blog the bits they do pay attention to?
It is *really* distracting as a speaker to have people near the front not looking at you, just typing away.
Also, it's worth remembering that people in the room paid a lot of money to be there. If people think they can get a good representation of the best sessions from bloggers, why bother attending?
I saw Lisa Barone, long-time live blogger, twit this
I said I appreciate and respect what live bloggers do, and that gets turned into condemning them? Sigh.
Look, Lisa, you just wrote this recently:
Motivation for me to SEO blog after you condemned it? Zero.
Seriously, I understood your point. And I also didn't take it personally. There are a lot of blogs out there, and you weren't saying they were a waste of time, just that there can be a lot of noise:
I know your live blogging. I've read some of your live blogging this week, and it's been exceptionally well done. You can get personal with it without being distracting, comprehensive with it, do great session summaries.
Having said that, there is bad live blogging that goes on. Sorry if that hurts your feelings, the feelings of others or whatever. But there is. You can ask any speaker who has been live blogged, and they'll all have horror stories about how they've been represented AT SOME POINT. Not always. Not a condemnation of everything -- I didn't condemn all live blogging, and I find it unfortunate that you had to twitterize it that way.
But like I said, I was just thinking about this last night after reading through another round of live blogging. I almost did my own post, one that if I had would have been far more constructive and less harsh than what this person wrote. But I decided against it, because I figured no matter how I wrote it, it would just be seen as some attack that would get the live bloggers all riled up. Who really needs that? I don't.
Then I read this post -- a harshly written one I agree -- and thought wow, someone else is feeling this way. Plus, privately, I've heard other people say the same.
I'd hope the reaction wouldn't be a knee-jerk "Danny condemns live blogging," especially when I didn't. I'd hope instead that here's someone who's been pretty supportive of live blogging over the years (I've given out press passes to live bloggers when I have NOT given them to some mainstream outlets) suggesting that just perhaps there's room for improvement.
Consider that since you've left Bruce Clay and brought We Build Pages into the live blogging realm, we know have five if not more major publications doing it -- We Build Pages, Bruce Clay, Search Engine Roundtable, Marketing Pilgrim and Top Rank. This is just off the top of my head. If I were one of those publications, I'd be looking about how to distinguish myself to readers. One way might be to do less live blogging and more post-show recap blogging. We could indeed use a lot more of that.
Danny, didn't mean to take your comments out of context. Kind of crappy to have this conversation taking place while I'm on Day 3 of Pubcon where I've liveblogged a dozen or so sessions this week and exhausted myself doing so. I'm actually midsession right now (heh), but I do hope to respond to this in the next day or so.
Apologies again to Danny. It was a quick, frustrated comment on Twitter. No disrespect intended.
@iBrian Or could it be that the live bloggers are the ones that enable the other attendees to sit back and listen to the presentation, knowing that they don't have to try to write down every point the speaker is saying? Especially for the 9:00 sessions the morning after Search Bash or Google Dance. :)
At the university level today, many students are welcoming lectures being recorded, saying that now they can focus on what the professor is saying in class, then review specific points later, rather than madly writing down details and missing the big picture. I'm not saying that sessions should be put online, but making a parallel to paying attention in one way in the session, then a different way afterwards, and how they can complement each other.
I've been on both ends of the coin here, both as a live blogger and as a person who's been live blogged.
Just as recently as today someone claims I said "LINKS ARE GOING AWAY" (Shock, horror gasp) That wasn't what I said at all - Lisa was in the session but didn't blog I said this, neither did Tamar as that wasn't what I said, I said "Less Emphasis on Links, more on Social Signals" .... now a errornous post is sitting on sphinn with 18 sphinns ... yeesh
I'm more for taking my notes, coming back and writing about it and finding a person if I've got something htat has a question on. I've also come back and made corrections. But I don't think "speed" is necessary when it comes to live blogging.
I think a lot of people are questioning it's worth - perhaps it would be more valuable if the bloggers weren't in such a race to get things up on a site, and had time to forumlate a more constructive review. I love Lisa's perseption on things - especially when she's not under such pressure to get it out there.
I've never liked live blogging either from the perspective of being the speaker that gets live blogged.
However, the guy that wrote this post is a total ass. Nuff said.
Surprise Scandel: Not All Writing Is Equal!!!
Those organisations liveblogging sessions are easy to find. Discriminate. Read each and decide which from none to none+n are worth your time. Ignore the rest. Take some reader responsibility.
Until conference organisers provide official session transcripts or official multimedia DVDs or live/delayed session streaming, the bloggers, including the live bloggers, are a welcome source of industry information and gossip.
They also provide fabulous conference promotion. When you read how packed it was, how great the information, the networking, the parties...don't you wish you were there? Well maybe send out for lunch, but otherwise?
Live blogging is a win-win-win-win, for the conference and it's organisers, for the bloggers and their organisations, for the persons and firms mentioned, for those of us sitting at home alone.
As to inaccuracies: I've yet to be at any gathering where everyone heard the same presentation. And many of their memories differ significantly from what was actually said. The difference is that live bloggers are sending those memories out in real time.
Live bloggers are human not Memorex.
No need to call in the terminator.
>> Live blogging is a win-win-win-win
Not necessarily. Do you think that if there was a ban on live blogging that more people would attend conferences?
>> Live bloggers are human not Memorex.
That's true...and I have certainly seen plenty of bad writing that wasn't edited. And I have seen plenty of live blogging that was not necessarily "live" but edited properly and posted within minutes.
@bhartzer: Do you think that if there was a ban on live blogging that more people would attend
conferences?
That is a decision for the conference organisers. They have control. It is their ROI calculation.
@bhartzer: and I have certainly seen plenty of bad writing that wasn't edited. And I have seen plenty of live blogging that was not necessarily "live" but edited properly and posted within minutes.
The blogging process and editing standards are choices of the bloggers and their organisations. Which ones to read or ignore is the readers choice.
If you dislike, for whatever reason, a writer, don't read their articles. If enough people agree
that person is singing in the shower alone. If a conference dislikes a blogger's standards they
have the ability to say 'no'.
I have also read many a non-live blogged piece worse than the average live blogging effort.
Crap is crap whether live blogged or agonised over for months.
The conferences have control of whether there is liveblogging. The bloggers are responsible for what they write. Talk to either or both. There are good and bad methods of pointing out
problems or deficiencies. The silliness you linked to is bad with a capital 'B'.
This post was a waste of my time.
It should be obvious to everyone that live blogging has its limitations. It goes without saying that some of the presented information will fail to make its way into the live-blogged rendition, and some information will even be completely misinterpreted. However, live blogging still has a distinct purpose, and the benefits far outweigh the limitations.
To compare live blogging to journalism or reporting is just ridiculous. A better analogy would be: live blogging is like broadcasting a basketball game over the radio. You know the commentator is going to have certain biases, and you can either accept it, change the station, or go watch the game for yourself and draw your own conclusions.
What confuses me about this author's post is why he felt the need to make personal attacks on people. It added nothing to an already-pointless rant.
Too bad about the tactic used by the author as this would make for an interesting discussion rather than an argument where feelings are already hurt.
(Then again, many here might admit that without using such tactics, no one would have read his opinions in the first place.)
I too would like to see more full-length followup or feature pieces. Good old-fashioned journalistic articles or narratives don't need to die with the printed newspaper.
But live blogging has a place an serves a purpose for many of us and I appreciate Lisa, Barry, and all for providing that service to us.
What tactic is that? Honesty? Integrity?
I'm very new to this blogging thing, and I admit it was way more fun when no one read it. I have been part of this community for quite some time, however, and have been live blogged erroneously over and over again, and it really annoys me. What gets me even more is that even those who agree with me have to sugar coat it so you don't hurt anyone's feelings. We are constantly hiding the truth because of greed and alliances. I for one know that my true friends will for give me or at least respect me for being honest: the emperor has no clothes.
The emperor looks good naked, but instead of admitting it, we bury the thread. This thread has more comments and conversation than any post on the Sphinn home page (except for the one about Spam on Sphinn), yet it has been buried it out of friendship, not out of truth or interest or any other reason except scratch-my-back journalism. Don't think so? Try this: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=sphinn+this
To be honest I'm glad it's dead, as I didn't mean to hurt anyones feelings. They are great bloggers, thinkers, commentators. I even read their blogs regularly, but not because of their mad typing skills.
And Jill, you are right. I'm an ass. Feel free to kiss me.
> alliances
Exactly. For me, the takeaway from this thread has nothing to do with live blogging (which I don't follow, so I'm not at all bothered by it).
It's how supposedly nice people immediately turn nasty the very second someone outside "the circle" says anything that hurts the sisterhood.
The post is simply a rant from an uninfluential blog, anyone can choose to ignore it, just as DazzlinDonna advised the author about live blogging.
Instead, it's comments like: "Blah blah word limit word limit i love liveblogging" and "the guy that wrote this post is a total ass. Nuff said" and "Motivation to liveblog after @dannysullivan condemns it? Zero."
Offenses, cynical remarks and contempt will possibly enhance your coolness in the eyes of your buddies and fans, but beyond that, it'll more likely to hurt you.
I have to say, I take this all very personally. Why do I kill myself for this industry.
I posted my two cents at http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/018739.html
Please do take the poll, so I know how to proceed.
I have no pretense that they are actually "nice."
Just love that comment. I rather doubt that they are qualified, however. Seems like live reporting would be a type of copyright violation to me. Yes, why pay to attend when you can get a transcript from a "court stenographer?"
I just love this comment:
Editors Note #2:
I’ve pulled the individual bloggers from this post. I did not mean this as an attack on them, I simply feel that live blogging is beneath their skills and talents.
...even in the apology, it sounds slightly patronising.
If people don't want to read live blogs, then don't read them. I'm suprised it's raised such a response though (although I guess it must have been the personal nature of the remarks [I didn't see those before they were removed])
@rustybrick that links dead by the way...
Fixed the link.
FYI, the conferences give us passes in order to live blog. We would not do it if it was illegal or a copyright violation.
I didn't intend it to be patronising, but then one seldom does I guess.
"Um, trust me - I have very thick skin. I wrote this post for a reason, I used "emotion" for a reason in this post. I am not sitting here crying about it."
What does that mean Barry?
John,
The primary issue here - from my perspective as an outsider - is that you make your argument based on journalistic principle, yet you violated the basic tenets of journalism in your rant. I would have had no problem reading a cogent argument where someone dispassionately and logically outlined the limitations of live blogging. If a writer would have laid out his/her points and given supporting examples, as journalists are trained to do, that post would have been worth the read.
However, not only did your post suffer a complete absence of supporting evidence, it was fraught with emotionally charged language *and* identified specific live bloggers (bad form). Here is just a sampling of some of the harsh words you used to describe the efforts of live bloggers: “useless”; “inaccurate, unedited reporting”; “shoddy journalism”; and “a selfish disregard for reporting integrity.” Seasoned pundits might use language like that to intentionally galvanize their audiences - but only after presenting an airtight case to support their perspective. But if someone tries to play pundit without the necessary journalistic finesse, it just comes across as an arrogant and ignorant invective with a questionable agenda.
Furthermore, I’m a little surprised to see you cry foul because your blog post was buried. I would contend it wasn’t buried out of friendship or “scratch-my-back journalism,” as you bemoan. (And do you actually believe Twitter falls under the umbrella of journalism? But I digress ....) I’ve never even met any of the live bloggers at Pubcon. And I tweeted about Lisa Barone's blog posts before you even wrote your post, adding later, in response to her tweet, that I had printed off her posts and was going to read them over lunch that day. In fact, I came up with the list of tasks I listed here as a direct result of that lunch. So, live blogging’s limitations aside, I was personally aided by her blog posts and wanted my Twitter followers to know about that resource. (And now I know there were other live bloggers at Pubcon and have it on my to do list today to check out their blogs as well.)
But now, because of your own shoddy work, not only did you botch an opportunity to present a compelling case about the limitations/dangers of live blogging, you created such a charged environment over this subject, it would be difficult for someone with legitimate journalistic skill and tact to cover it either … at least for a while. That, my friend, is not courage to be commended as you seem to suggest with your hackneyed reference to the naked emperor; I believe it’s been a disservice to the SEO community at large.
Cheers rustybrick.
69% say that people should not stop live blogging so far...interesting result.
Yes, it is interesting.
i commented on barrys post with what i'm copying and pasting here:
please don't give up live blogging! i'm an SEO that can't make to it pretty much any of the conferences and i look forward to reading the summaries of the sessions.
when i did go to one conference, my only one in face, i took diligent notes and read through the recaps and still took away from from them that i hadn't gotten at the conference myself. it's all about perspective and i very much appreciate all the efforts the live bloggers put into blogging dozens of sessions yearly.
thank you so much and please don't stop live blogging!
For the record, I've perhaps liveblogged more than 200 sessions in my life at SERoundtable.
In that entire time, I've been emailed once to make a quick one-word change in response to my "inaccurate" reporting.
I consider that success pretty damn accurate.
At SES SJ when Li Evans asked for tips for conference goers, my tip was to read live blogs about similar sessions from previous conferences. See what looked interesting that you want to know more about, then go to those sessions. It can be a way to get the most out of the conferences that you are able to attend. This is where the commentary in the live blogs can be helpful -- if someone writes that this is the same presentation as given at the last three conferences and the information is old, you might instead choose instead to go to one where the last similar session had comments about how great of a session it was, that there was a lot of practical advice that was going too fast to blog, but one of the best sessions of the conference. It's not what most people think of as a benefit to live blogging, but it can certainly help new conference goers get the most out of a conference, and come away with a positive experience -- as well as knowing which conferences lunch rooms are best skipped in favor of outside food!
I rarely sphinn, but this I sphunn. He has an opinion and he's entitled to it. Whether or not you agree doesn't make it less worthy of discussion, so I'm not understanding the de-sphinns, unless maybe I don't get the point of Sphinn in the first place (entirely possible)
I myself might agree with him if I ever read any live blogging, but I don't have time, and on the face of it doesn't sound like something I'd be terribly into anyway. But that's why there's chocolate and vanilla. If you like doing it and people like what you do, what difference it make what anyone else thinks?
But I don't think the discussion of it should be buried just because he named a few names.
"It is *really* distracting as a speaker to have people near the front not looking at you, just typing away."
And it's even worse when people are actually trying to liveblog the session to actually focus on what the presenters are REALLY discussing there while half of the room is Twittering and checking their email -- doing anything BUT what is relevant to the presentation. What's ruder? That or liveblogging?
At least livebloggers are focused on the presentations and topics.
--
"One way might be to do less live blogging and more post-show recap blogging. We could indeed use a lot more of that."
There are a lot of non-mainstream blogs that do that already, don't they? I'm pretty sure I've seen coverage from blogs before, Danny.
--
"Do you think that if there was a ban on live blogging that more people would attend conferences?"
No. Do you REALLY think that people stay home because they want to rely on liveblogging (or perhaps just those "better-versed" recaps)? That's ludicrous.
--
" I have been part of this community for quite some time, however, and have been live blogged erroneously over and over again, and it really annoys me."
All that proves is that you're a crappy liveblogger. Making it sound like nobody should liveblog because YOU suck at it was an error on your part.
(On another note, I also find it funny that you *just* joined Sphinn. Where have you been?)
--
By the way, in some sessions (none of mine, but I know livebloggers who employ this tactic), the only thing "liveblogged" is the actual presenters' slides. Are you calling those inaccurate?
"Whether or not you agree doesn't make it less worthy of discussion, so I'm not understanding the de-sphinns, unless maybe I don't get the point of Sphinn in the first place (entirely possible)"
Desphinn = disagreeing with a post with a legitimate reason. That's what we just did. That's why Desphinn exists. Not everything should require endorsement.
(On the contrary, "Report as spam" = reporting obvious spam.)
It's worthy of a discussion. That's why there are 30+ comments thus far.
I started typing a comment that just grew and grew to a monstrous size, so I blogged it instead:
http://www.webuildpages.com/blog/sem-events/pubcon-2008/liveblogging-is-not-evil/
Livebloggers rock.
Barry Schwartz began the tradition of "live blogging" and never made any attempts whatsoever to pretend to be journalistic or verbatim accurate. He always warned readers that his team were getting the gist down but not striving for perfection.
If a reader wanted edited live blogging, they could turn to Lisa Barone, for ex., who would try and clean up her posts. I know, because I witnessed her doing it many times in the press room. I would edit mine as well, but not to perfection. For Barry, the motivation was to get the session coverage out quickly so that those who couldn't be there could pick up some of the info.
The rub is not that there is live blogging. The question is whether or not it's fair to report on sessions others have paid to see. I will never forget my roots as a single mom starting a business. That compelled me to devote my own money and time to live blog for Barry. It was my way of giving back to those who taught me when I could in no way afford any training or be away from young children.
The benefits to readers and live bloggers are often individual and private. I honor and respect that. Obviously, the idea caught on and you'll find many live bloggers. Some speakers complained about being live blogged, but I was sad that nobody live blogged the session me, Lance and Gord were in at SMX East. That nobody wanted to live blog on usability and seo was interesting. It was also my debut at a larger conference. I could be upset and take it personally or accept the situation.
There is a place for live blogging. There is a need. I would prefer, as Danny hints at, to see specific and talented live bloggers assigned to sessions. There are journalism pools...that could be adapted to large seminars. I live blogged so that I could attend conferences. I was willing to work in trade for the opportunity to be there. Maybe I'm unusual in that sense but I doubt I'm the only one who would. Perhaps a barter opportunity might be offered.
I'd like to see somone sit down and take the suggestions being offered in this discussion and find a way to develop a method that will benefit both speakers and readers.
Lastly, I was honored and thrilled to live blog for SERoundtable.
I have live blogged quite a few times for the Roundtable, including Pubcon this past week. Yes, I'm sure there are some inaccuracies in my postings. And without a doubt there are omissions. The gain a sense of magnitude, there were approximately 50,000 words (or 200+ pages of text) that were liveblogged on the Roundtable over the past three days, between all of us.
Live blogging is not always so easy. Sometimes speakers talk a mile a minute. Often, poor acoustics or low sound volume makes the task a big challenge. And there's almost always the speaker with the thick accent which makes the task even more difficult.
But the point is this. There are 5 or 6 sessions being held simultaneously. Attendees and speakers can only be at one place at a time. Where else can I tune into the sessions that I missed, and really wanted to attend? And what about the folks that couldn't make it for either personal or financial reasons? Should they be denied access to the gems that often come from the sessions?
Until the community has access to the video or audio of these presentations, what alternative is there besides tuning in to the sites that do a phenomenal job liveblogging?
I'm on the fence here because I love it and hate it all at the same time.
Love it when I need to find out what was going on with something I couldn't attend.
Hate it when someone misquotes me and messes up the facts, which someone did the other day, which made me sound like more of a complete asshole and idiot than I actually am.
Sure, I could probably ask them to correct it but who the hell wants to chase down every live blogger and verify they got it right?
I don't mind typos or minor misquotes, but when the entire gist of what was said got lost in translation then it's just bad.
Maybe what would help, thanks to services like twitter, is the live bloggers can twitter the speakers with links to the live blog posts so the speakers can comments on those posts with corrections for accuracy when needed.
There's no question live blogging can be adapted and morphed into perfection, but then someone would need to actually PAY live bloggers for this.
And nobody wants to do that :)
Some responses:
"I consider that success pretty damn accurate."
Tamar, understand that people aren't always going to tell you or anyone if you get something wrong. Part of that will be that they may simply not read the liveblogging. Part of it may be that they just don't want to go through the hassle. I can talk to mainstream reporters as well and come away thinking wow, how did they report that as what I said. But it can also be too much of a pain to follow up. I think it's a fair point that speakers shouldn't be afraid to speak up to livebloggers and ask for corrections. I'm assuming the livebloggers themselves would appreciate that.
"He has an opinion and he's entitled to it."
Yes, he does. And he could have said it better, but some of the name calling here that's started doesn't fit with the common sense guidelines on commenting which means you discuss things in a respectful manner.
"There are a lot of non-mainstream blogs that do that already, don't they? I'm pretty sure I've seen coverage from blogs before, Danny. "
There are mainstream media reports that come out of conference sessions. Often these can be less useful than liveblogging, because few sessions are covered and not covered in any real depth. Hence the frustration I've felt of late with liveblogging. Do we really need five people covering the same session in the same way? And don't forgot, liveblogging isn't just the A-Lister livebloggers. There's lots and lots of liveblogging that goes on.
"The rub is not that there is live blogging. The question is whether or not it's fair to report on sessions others have paid to see."
This is a non-issue to me. If someone attends a conference, in this day and age, it's absurd to think they won't live blog. I mean anyone, right -- any attendee might do so. There's no conference that's going to prevent that, nor do I think they should.
We do in this day also have what I'd called credentialed livebloggers. These are the folks who get actual press passes. I certainly continue to plan giving them passes. I've long appreciated what Barry started, getting coverage out of sessions to people who for various reasons could not attend a conference. Not everyone can, and while I love to sell tickets, I love for information to get out even more. I don't see liveblogging as some type of threat to ticket sales.
I will say that not everyone gets a press pass becasue they say they want to liveblog. We've turned some of those requests away, just as we've turned away some mainstream press. I kid you not -- each conference ticket has a price tag of several hundred dollars attached to it primarily due to food costs (don't get me going about the rip-off that is hotel food pricing). If someone says they want a pass to liveblog, we'll look at the publication, how long they've been doing it, the potential reach they have.
"There is a place for live blogging. There is a need. I would prefer, as Danny hints at, to see specific and talented live bloggers assigned to sessions. There are journalism pools...that could be adapted to large seminars."
I'd certainly like to see coordination. Some sessions will get everyone live blogging them and then others have no one. It's sad. I mean, there's also competitiveness among the liveblogging publications too, so maybe that won't happen.
More than anything else, I just want something different? The fast summaries can be useful, but I'd love to see more longer reviews. And please, I'm begging, I'd love to have someone take the time and give me a "Best Of" review of things that have come out of a show -- top highlights, top tips.
"Live blogging is not always so easy. Sometimes speakers talk a mile a minute. Often, poor acoustics or low sound volume makes the task a big challenge. And there's almost always the speaker with the thick accent which makes the task even more difficult. "
And John actually said this, to his credit.
"Whether or not you agree doesn't make it less worthy of discussion, so I'm not understanding the de-sphinns, unless maybe I don't get the point of Sphinn in the first place (entirely possible)"
I sphunn this because I thought the discussion was useful, not because I agreed with everything in the article or the tone of it or was somehow endorsing it. Personally, I've sphunn many things I've disagreed with because the discussion made the thread here worthwhile. And personally, I think it's unfortunatel that the desphinns mean that some people won't get to see the discussion at all.
So Tamar, when you say:
"Desphinn = disagreeing with a post with a legitimate reason. That's what we just did. That's why Desphinn exists. Not everything should require endorsement."
I disagree. I saw desphinn as a way for people to prevent low-quality material from going hot and getting more publicity. That's my take -- not saying it's the right take or that everyone has to do it that way. Here, some might disagree with how he said his post or the ideas in it, but with 30 comments -- many of them good -- yeah, I think the thread here is Sphinnworthy.
I think we can all enjoy live blogging by taking it with a grain of salt, understanding it was produced at some haste. I think it can represent interesting things in terms of the vibe or intensity of a session that later reporting might not capture.
As with any reporting, there is interpretiation, and it is more than possible for misconceptions to occur whether the blogging is "live" or not. We don't believe everything we read do we?
I had the same thought, and it took me a while to work out whether I wanted to sphinn it or not, but decided the debate had gone so hot that it needed support...(thanks to Michael Gray for the encouragement via Twitter!)
...a rule for us all to learn. Now, I'm definitely going home now (I've been making that promise for half an hour now!). I'll just check my emails one last time...! ;)
Sphunn for the interesting conversation that has transpired.
For the record, I'm all for live blogging. I'm also all for free speach and the desimination of opinions (even if this particular bordered on being a little nasty)
And John actually said this, to his credit.
"Whether or not you agree doesn't make it less worthy of discussion, so I'm not understanding the de-sphinns, unless maybe I don't get the point of Sphinn in the first place (entirely possible)"
Not sure if this was referring to the remark above or below, but if it was below, it was actually me who said it. Not that I mind giving John credit, but shouldn't think he'd need or want it.
"I can talk to mainstream reporters as well and come away thinking wow, how did they report that as what I said."
Danny, that's becasue journalists look for a particular spin for their article's purposes. Liveblogging is simply reguritating slides or what comes out of a presenter's mouth.
And with Google Alerts, how many people really don't read the conference coverage about themselves? Even with these tools in one's arsenal, I haven't been contacted. Like I said, I've only heard about inaccurate representation ONCE. I'm sure there are more, but I'm assuming these "inaccuracies" aren't as egregious as the post here claims them to be.
"I'm assuming the livebloggers themselves would appreciate that."
I actually appreciate being informed when I'm wrong than being misled to believe that what I said is truth.
"Do we really need five people covering the same session in the same way?"
It's called style. Lisa's style, for example, is absolutely f'ing awesome. I have my own style that even differs from Barry's. People will choose to go to the blogs that they like.
Using this analogy, do we really need 50 different blogs reporting on Google's updated Quality Score or Project Silk Road (without a new spin)? How many sites do you see that report the SAME news again and again? How many, erm, news outlets reported that McCain lost to Obama? In the grand scheme of the way news works, there's repetition. People choose to read the blogs/news outlets that they want to read because of style, personal preference, or whatnot. The same should hold true to for liveblogs.
---
And the note regarding Desphinn:
Danny, may I remind you of this post: http://sphinn.com/story/27933 and the description contained within: "We're pleased to announce the release of a new 'Desphinn' feature on Sphinn, which effectively allows you to vote down a story that you do not agree with... "
Low quality stuff won't get frontpaged due to the nature that it's, well, low quality. People won't Sphinn those stories, so Desphinn isn't really necessary in that regard. And some people might even report those submissions as spam (though I'm not saying that's the right approach).
I think most (all?) of us are using Desphinn properly in this case. We didn't like the article and we disagreed constructively (for the most part) with it. (I should add that there's still a bug when Desphinning - even with 50+ characters, because of some punctuation problem, I had to edit my original Desphinn reason. Perhaps that's why the rest of the Desphinns aren't as constructive as they could have been.)
@dannysullivan, I think I was the first to desphinn the blog post, so I'll weigh in on this. Although I have never desphunn anything before, I did it because of how poorly it was written and presented, not merely because I disagreed with him.
He also cherrypicked three livebloggers and highlighted them in his original post, replete with links to their blogs), which I thought was in poor taste. That, in addition to the incendiary language he used, is what gave his post a poignantly attack dog feel. And I'm not in any kind of SEO Ya Ya Sister-esque inner circle.
But the fact that he posted it on the last day of Pubcon, when I'm sure the livebloggers who covered the conference must have been running on fumes, was the proverbial last straw for me.
I also don't think the point of Sphinning something is for the discussion here on Sphinn, although I agree with you that the discussion here has far surpassed the value of the original post. I personally will only submit/Sphinn material that I think has some merit, even if I may not agree with all of the points. And I do see sphinning a blog post as endorsement of the author on some level.
As I mentioned in one of my comments, I think it's unfortunate that John has muddied the waters so much that we may never read a well-presented blog post on the issue of liveblogging, as you alluded to writing. I've read many articles by you. You would have done such a better job addressing this issue without tripping off land mines that have needlessly polarized the community.
This is just my perspective from the cheap seats, as a relative newcomer to the whole SEO online community.
"I also don't think the point of Sphinning something is for the discussion here on Sphinn, although I agree with you that the discussion here has far surpassed the value of the original post."
Amen. How many people here would have Sphunn this without discussion? People are Sphinning it now only because the discussion is priceless.
"Danny, that's becasue journalists look for a particular spin for their article's purposes. Liveblogging is simply reguritating slides or what comes out of a presenter's mouth."
No, it's because reporters are human and get things wrong, just like livebloggers can do. They don't always understand what you're saying, misinterpret what you're saying. To some degree, if liveblogging is now facing the same criticism that reporting has long had, congrats! I mean seriously, congrats -- people care enough about it, depend enough on it that they want to see it improve.
On Google Alerts, I don't run one for myself, Tamar. Maybe I should. But you know, in the middle of a conference, I don't always have time to go back and see what the liveblogging said. And if I do, I probably don't have time to go back and say uh, I don't think I said that. And then when I get back and I'm digging out, it's not a top priority.
"How many sites do you see that report the SAME news again and again?"
Plenty. And I see the same criticisms that people say, why do you need all these different publications covering the same thing. Some of it certainly can be style -- you like how one particular person approaches something. Some of it is viewpoint -- how I might cover Silk Road may be much different than a non-search publication. Some of it is audience -- different pubs have different audiences, so they have to cover what they think their audiences want.
But when one of the things toss out is that we need liveblogging so that people can hear what comes out of sessions, then yeah, I think that it would be nice if somehow the liveblogging community decided that all sessions in a particular time slot could get cover, rather than all five being picked up.
This goes on with the SEO blog space all the time. If I see a topic I'd like to cover but don't get to it, I'll do a call out to Google Blogoscoped or SEOmoz or SEObook or Matt Cutts or whatever. So sure, it would be pretty cool if there was pool reporting of a conference. I'm not expecting that, of course.
Annie, I think John deserves a break here on the entire timing thing. Seriously. He's got a blog that someone else here called "insignificant." That's not very nice -- but he certainly isn't someone with a huge audience. He didn't submit the article here -- Bill did. He's made some observations and made them at a time when they were on his mind. That's unfortunate for the hardworking livebloggers who are tired at the end of a conference, but I doubt he was sitting around thinking that he wanted to really get them when they were out of energy. Plenty of people post what's on their minds when it is on their minds.
"You would have done such a better job addressing this issue without tripping off land mines that have needlessly polarized the community."
I appreciate that, I do. But like I said, I contemplated doing a post about this myself and decided not to because it wasn't worth the hassle. I didn't feel any criticisms would be taken constructively but rather that it would probably just ignite upset. Honestly, even if I had written some hopefully well-balanced piece, I think it still would have been seen as an attack. I kind of regret even commenting at all -- a huge part of me thinks damn, I shouldn't have bothered. But however he voiced concerns about liveblogging, they were real ones, and I've had some concerns as well -- and I know others have. So maybe the livebloggers will understand that yes, we do love them. Yes, we do love the hard work they put in. But yes, there can be room for improvement.
Annie, don't feel bad about desphinning early on. It is hard to understand what to do. But Tamar, there was I think some good discussion started here with Keri and I already, but the desphinns still came on strong.
When in the middle of a conference, you are entitled to be in the middle of the conference. When you have time, you can get back to the liveblogger and let them know if they inaccurately represented your statements. If it's THAT serious of an infraction, either the presenter or a reader will point it out. I somehow don't see that happening, so I contest the inaccuracy claims.
"I think that it would be nice if somehow the liveblogging community decided that all sessions in a particular time slot could get cover, rather than all five being picked up."
If I understand you correctly, you're saying that the same 5 blogs shouldn't cover the same single session? We don't really collaborate on who covers what. We do so internally, but not blogosphere-wide.
Further, during my first few conferences, I ended up covering the same sessions again and again. Perhaps we're not covering those other sessions becasue the speakers aren't adding anything new from the previous conference. That's not a fault with livebloggers and it's not really a fault with the presenters since the audience usually differs from conference to conference. However, you can find most of those sessions in the archives.
Also, at the end of the day, the search bloggers will often liveblog what the readers appear to want. At PubCon, I heard that very few people went to the PPC sessions and a lot more people went to the link building/SEO sessions. If audience attendance is representative of what people are looking to read online, shouldn't the bloggers cover what they feel is more relevant to that wider audience?
"But Tamar, there was I think some good discussion started here with Keri and I already, but the desphinns still came on strong."
Of course they did. People still disagreed with the earlier sentiment. I think the conversation here is golden. I also think that John shouldn't get pageviews for his poorly-written post. Way to thank people who spend countless hours on conference reporting instead of filtering out the noise by staying quiet.
Like I said, though, this conversation is great. That doesn't mean I want to Sphinn it. I still disagree with the original post, and that is what people were voting on initially. (We're kind of on related tangents now, and that's what I believe is causing people to change their voting habits/tune.)
"Danny, that's becasue journalists look for a particular spin for their article's purposes. Liveblogging is simply reguritating slides or what comes out of a presenter's mouth."
Depends on the type of journalism. Straight journalism is objective and "slant" is not permitted. As reporters, again, its just the facts, just the situation. Not "let's create a story", let's create a situation". That writing falls into opinion pieces, columns, etc.
The expectations for "live bloggers" seem to vary among readers. If they expect objective reporting with editing and follow up with speakers to check on facts and quotes, they're going to be disappointed. This is not the style typically done at SEO/M conferences.
In my view, some folks feel compelled to step up and share the conference experience with those who can't be there. Some do it for the love of the SEO community and some do it for fame-bait. Everyone has their motivation and that leaves many choices for those who read. Now, the whole process is over analyzed, which is likely a good thing, because now it can be refined and adapted for changing times and needs.
Danny suggested a roundup type of post of highlights from sessions, etc. Great idea.
It was hard to desphinn a healthy discussion, btw.
Tamar, there is inaccurate liveblogging out there. I've seen it. Sometimes I've been horriified by it. I've also seen it never get corrected, which tells me that nope, not all serious infractions are getting covered. But I won't debate that point further, as I can't shed any further light on that aspect than what I've already said.
Yes, I am saying it would be nice if we didn't have five blogs cover one session while 3 or 4 other sessions get no coverage at all. I'd rather see more sessions covered. I know you don't collaborate. I think it would be nice if you did. I'm not expecting that to happen.
On you personally being tired covering the same session over and over again, hey, I agree. Why does this happen. Let's take Shari Thurow and her search engine friendly design session. That content doesn't change much -- because it doesn't have to. But I've seen that session selected for coverage when other new sessions aren't. I'm all for less coverage of sessions with "evergreen" material and more for the new stuff.
On John, I'm sorry. You're still unfair. "Way to thank people who spend countless hours on conference reporting instead of filtering out the noise by staying quiet." He could have written it better -- so let's beat up on him ironically when people are then poking back at him talking about how hard it is to write well. Underneath how he's written it, that's your reader. OK? That's your liveblogger audience speaking, part of it, and the part you might not be hearing from. That audience is saying there is room for improvement.
" I have been part of this community for quite some time, however, and have been live blogged erroneously over and over again, and it really annoys me."
Tamar, John said he had BEEN live blogged erroneously, not that he was live blogging himself.
Umm. Seriously? I for one have seen him for quite a while on WMW. It kind of sounds like there's an implication here that if you aren't a regular contributor / user / reader on Sphinn, then you somehow have less credibility in your opinion? I hope I'm misunderstanding that.
"I've also seen it never get corrected, which tells me that nope, not all serious infractions are getting covered."
If you've seen it and you see it never getting corrected, why's that? Because you're merely seeing and not reporting back to the liveblogger that they're reported inaccurately? What is this -- are we afraid that livebloggers won't be amenable to edit their posts and fix the erroneous reporting?
I don't get it. If there's a problem, TELL THE LIVEBLOGGER that it was inaccurate. They will fix it.
You're right. We're beating at a dead horse.
"Underneath how he's written it, that's your reader. OK?"
Except that he wasn't there! How's he to know what's accurate or not?
@netmeg - thanks for the correction. Like I said earlier, I actually appreciate being told I said something wrong, and it's noted.
Bottom line: got a problem with liveblogging? Don't insult the art of liveblogging as a whole, and certainly don't make it personal by putting names into the post.
Thanks, Danny. I appreciate that. I wasn't trying to start a desphinning trend; I really was just acting on conscience at the time and did think long and hard before hitting the Despinn button.
As far as the the timing of John's post goes, timing alone wouldn't have made it deshinn-worthy. It was the combination of all of the factors: subpar presentation, invective language, pundit attempt gone awry, naming names, etc.
I've been as outspoken as I have b/c the liveblogging posts I've read to date have demonstrated so much more journalistic style and integrity than his drive-by post. And if someone's going to presumptuously set himself up as an authoritative critic of what is in keeping with journalistic integrity, he should - at minimum - be able to employ even rudimentary journalistic styling and presentation skills. At the risk of stating the obvious, attendance at the event would have been an excellent starting point.
Similarly, as a self-appointed voice tasked with declaring the emporer (i.e., livebloggers) has no clothes, his skin should be thick enough to handle some pushback. He's a big boy and seems to be thriving on the controversy - at least that's what his comments here would suggest. But it's been my experience that people who engage in controversial behavior usually enjoy the ripples that spawn from the rocks they throw.
One final note: I would disagree with your perspective that he didn't anticipate getting as much attention as his post endendered. He posted a link to his post on Twitter Wed night and marked it with the #pubcon hashtag. Knowing that there are a lot of people following that hashtag right now, I think it's safe to assert he wanted the attention (and traffic) and was vying for the spotlight.
"I wasn't trying to start a desphinning trend."
Annie, you didn't. I found this thread via a Google Alert for my name and made the decision to Desphinn only after I read the post.
I very much appreciate your truly level-headed comments, by the way. Thanks for your support.
Thanks, Tamar. And I appreciate your liveblogging efforts. I remember sitting behind you during a session you were (in looking back) probably liveblogging at SMX East. I thought I saw sparks flying from your keyboard and worried about having used aerosol hairspray that day. :)
I think it is a great idea for the 'live blogging blogosphere' to get together and coordinate on what to cover, this way there is little overlap. Maybe even host the live blogging coverage at the official conference web site or at least a snippet of it.
Will think more about this, but good points.
I'm way the heck out here in Hawaii. I simply can not fly to the mainland to attend every confrence that I would like to. I sincerly apreciate the live blogging and thank those who do this work. Keep up the good work!
Very interesting subject. I Sphinned instead of De-Sphunn because I feel this is an important topic. I, along with many of the above posters, have benefited from both Live Blogging as well as reading others' live blog posts.
I think the thing it comes down to is quality. I will put my stuff or Lisa Barone's or some of the others way up there, however I do see some live bloggings that simply copy what is on the PowerPoint slide and completely miss the filler presented orally by the speaker. Honestly, I feel that some people may have been doing this so long that it is becoming more of a chore than a pleasure.
I owe a ton of credit to Barry for starting this phenomenon within the Search industry conferences. In fact, I was invited by Barry to join his live blogging based on a post I did covering a SEW Live event back in 2005 or 2006. The title for that coverage was "SEW Atlanta - Rustybrick style" or something like that. For the next 4 or 5 SES conferences I churned out beaucoup words, and I challenge anyone to find coverage that I did that did not catch nearly all of the speaker nuances. In fact, I really considered myself to be one of the best at it. Then work and greater obligations started getting in the way and I had to start blogging less and less sessions.
The way to be a "good" live blogger is to know the subject being presented. The only way you can keep up with both the slides and the presenter is by being able to write about a minute or more behind what is being said. The only way to do that is to have a fundamental understanding of the topic. I think you will find that the "better" live bloggers are typically more experienced in the industry than those who cause this kind of dissatisfaction.
OK anyway I feel bad for Barry and I plan to continue to live blog when I can…maybe even just 3 or 4 sessions per conference. I hope Barry doesn’t shut it down at SER because then I’ll have to find somewhere else to publish. :p
I dont want live blogging to end (certainly!) ....But if we are talking about making things "better" then obviously there is no question of disagreement. However I certainly don't agree with how this discussion originally initiated. Our community accepts the value of the live bloggers and we appreciate their effort.
Now if someone wants to make things 100% accurate, i guess the easier solution would be Record each sessions and sell them in Downloadable/Streaming format. The conference host will maintain everything and this will certainly create less confusion and will deliver near 100% accuracy... and also more bloggers will be able to grasp the content and write their own 'take' on each session. [Provided that the bloggers get a Free or discounted pass to get those content ]. Cost of hotels/transportation will be saved (that barry mentioned) in his post.
Now,Will this effect the sale of tickets to the actual conferences -- No, if you can create a strategic pricing point. (It should not be too 'cheap' nor too 'expensive'). So people who actually understands the value of 'networking' (which is one of the key value of going to any conference IMO) will just continue to go to the conferences. And for those who just can't make it for various reasons will then be able to buy the recorded version...
This will supposedly increase the growth of the conference itself as many people who hasn't been to one will actually get to see what goes on in a search conference and how the networking opportunities are like. Also this can possibly reach a wider (International) Market...
Obviously this isn't a full proof plan but at least it can be tested right?
Just my 2 cents :)
Sometimes even on Sphinn good can triumph over evil, dispite the best efforts of the sisterhood.
Whilst a part of me thinks wooah the egos have landed I did nonethless want to just say to @rustybrick that Barry, back in the day at SEW I loved your liveblog conference stuff, it was always good to hear what key players were saying around key search developments from places I just couldn't be at.
Today (for me) I don't get the sense that theres the same level of buzz or interest from the gig, but I absolutely appreciate that there will be many others who do, so for that reason alone I'd hope that you'd carry on with those enthusements.
That said, people like you doing this stuff is no longer unique or original. The game has moved on a little , we have many more routes to market; more blogs, the twittersphere, better connected spaces etc have all enabled for a greater number of people to connect and share more quickly. Vloggers, video interviews in the halls, podcasts, QIK, seesmic etc have all raised that part of the game and made the information (or misinterpreation thereof ) that little more easier to access.
Isn't all of that a good thing? Doesn't it all help stimulate conversations? Isn't this what we try and do daily for our clients and web properties? Why is the subject of the scorn so awful for facilitating that? Disagree with him sure, but hey what's with all the personal stuff? I dont get it.
@RustyBrick: It was an incredible honor to live blog for SEORT. We've had so many folks come up to us to say thanks for the effort. Your contribution to this industry does not go unnoticed by those that matter. Remember, no good deed goes unpunished friend.
My comment from the original thread:
How sad is this. Call this post what it is: second tier Sphinn bait, which accomplished its goal. Rusty Brick has done more for the SEM industry that multiple publications of this blog’s insight and quality. John Coronella lost me as a feed subscriber today, which is the true “power of one.”
@John: This post is closer to “selfish disregard for reporting integrity.” than nearly all of the live blogging I read from PubCon.
Finally, please point out the “lack of integrity” in this post, one of the 7 posts I live blogged for Barry: http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/018725.html
@ JohnHGohde: I am far from your sisterhood. I suggest you consider charm school to temper your sexist rhetoric sir.
Really? Don't you people have something fucking better to do than bitch about this? If all of you were live blogging or doing session recaps instead of bitching about this we might have a bit more info on the whole thing.
If you don't like it you don't have to read it.
I just have to add that AnnieCushing is my new hero. (Not sure how I haven't noticed her before.)
No need for anyone to read anything other than what she's written here, as she has it exactly right!
Here's a general thought - perhaps in future it may be useful if someone planning to live blog a session were to inform the speakers just before, and ensure they have speaker email addresses to send a copies of their coverage to them once posted online.
That way, lines of communication remain open, both parties remain intelligently aware of each other, and potential misunderstandings and embarrassment can be quickly and easily corrected, ensuring that the overall process remains on-going and constructive as the industry continues to develop.
Just a thought.
@Jill: Here Here
iBrian we often try to get info from the speakers prior to the session - it does help to be able to work directly off of cutr-pasted ppt outlines when making notes (as many do when possible). Since I typically can get the PPT in advance only about 5% of the time, I also make it a point to approach the speakers after the session to get them to reads the coverage at SER. I have had a few instances where I have updated/clarified content as a result.
Jill I thought you said 'nuff said way back on top...trying to be creative by endorsing someone else's platform again? Nothing against Annie she has been a valuable contributor to our industry for some time now...There are plenty of other valid and readable comments in this thread...
@aimClear
If the shoe fits, wear it. It is a very descriptive term that sums up the overall nastiness of the people who belong to it.
And, addressing your lack of observational skills: It was a guote!!!
@Jill
If the post was all that nasty, the Sphinn would have been deleted and/or edited.
Wow - Jill, I'm humbled by your endorsement. I'll be replaying that in my head all day. heh :)
No need to be humbled, Annie. You totally rocked this thread. Thanks for your cool head and great comments.