Open Letter: A Lesson Learned Twittering

The following is an open letter to Jim Louderback, Editor-in-Chief of PC Magazine, as well as any of the several hundred employees who work for Ziff Davis Media.

Dear Mr. Louderback,

Last Friday, yes Friday the 13th, I put up a post on Twitter that I wish I hadn’t. I said that I don’t read the hard copy of PC Magazine and that my free subscription goes in the trash. In a guest editorial on Strumpette you weighed whether the magazine in response should blacklist all PR pitches from Edelman, my employer, on behalf of our tech clients.

I learned a valuable lesson. Post too fast without providing context and it can elicit an unintended response. While the item is true, it does not reflect my full media consumption habits. I subscribe to PC Mag RSS feeds and have linked to several of your publication's online articles over the three years I have been writing this blog. Further, I have linked to articles from eWeek, your sister site.

More importantly, my opinions and habits do not reflect the broader populace, our agency or its clients. While there is a subset of people who are reading blogs more than they do traditional media, magazines are in fact thriving. I noted this important trend on February 12 of this year. Therefore, the audiences that magazines like yours reach are important to our clients and our agency.

I apologize if you and the editorial team at Ziff Davis took offense to my post. I look forward to meeting you one day for a drink to discuss the next time we’re on the same coast.

Sincerely,
steve rubel
svp/me2revolution

Comments

[Jeremy Pepper]

Is your apology to C/Net next?

[Jim Louderback]

Thanks Steve, I figured as much. With Twitter, we're still trying to figure out what it really is. Frankly I was shocked to find out that, unlike IM, twitter messages live on the web forever.

I'm looking forward to exploring how we can make our products more relevant to your own personal technology information needs -- and by extension for your clients as well. Heck, I'll even buy the drink!

[Justin Kownacki]

Context is key. However, in Twitter, brevity rules the day. How to include context in 140 characters?

[Bronwen Clune]

I think the fact that our Twitter messages live forever on the web is something to think about. It is easy to get caught up in the casual and streaming nature of Twitter that can lead to those often impromptu and spontaneous thoughts that we might otherwise keep to ourselves.
It might be a good reason for some of us to turn our messages on to private, but that detracts from the Twitter experience for me.
As for your apology - pity the personal expression has to be compromised by business interests. You were not saying PC Magazine was bad, just pointing out how you consume it.
They found it surprising that you "consumed" it through RSS - so maybe that is a wake up call for them. Let us know how your discussion goes :) or better still live Twitter it!

[Steve Coulson]

Jim - I have to ask - when you read Steve's Twitter message and thought that it meant he was saying he didn't value what your magazine had to offer, you say your initial reactions were to cancel his subscription, and then bully the company that employs him by threatening to blacklist them? Are you kidding?

I am absolutely appalled that in an era when companies need to start listening to their readers, you reacted like any other big old dumb media outlet, by trying to control the conversation. Steve's an intelligent guys, and if he finds less value in your magazine than you believe he should, maybe you should find out why and try to address it. Because he's exactly the type of reader you need to retain if you are to maintain a high profile presence in the technology arena.

This is such a huge mistake on your part I don't know where to begin. To chastize Steve because he finds more value from your web offering than from a paper magazine? Are you serious? As a magazine covering the hi-tech arena, if this truly is your perspective, you might as well throw in the towel right now.

Steve Coulson
chief creative officer, crayon

[Amit Agarwal]

Really liked the manner in which you guys settled the whole issue.

Steve, just wondering if you would delete that particular Tweet ?

[/pd]

this seems like the age old war between MSM/ media house and the blogoshere.the twist here is a call to ban a vertical in blogoshpere -- the PR space.. !!

[Michael Markman]

Shorter Rubel: A blurt can hurt.
Shorter Louderback: Back from the brink, time to rethink (over a drink).

[Amanda Chapel]

Coulson,

Your position is cult of the amateur crap. Steve's derogatory remark was specific: "PC Mag is another. I have a free sub but it goes in the trash."

Apparently, you did not read Jim's letter. You apparently do not understand the motivation behind Rubel's apology. Edelman, and especially their clients, very much value PC Magazine!

That's the lesson learned here. Maybe you stay after class.

Sincerely,

- Amanda Chapel

[Ike]

Steve - you have hit directly at the heart of the Twitter conundrum.

Jim's initial impulses are exactly what he said they were: impulses. The fact that he did NOT act on them is a validation of restraint with regards to instant communications. If this technology is truly about creating "conversations," then part of the conversation is the strategic holding of one's tongue when faced with an unexpected statement.

Jim didn't act like a "big old dumb media outlet." He didn't call for Rubel's head. In fact, what I read from his published comments about this matter was a treatment about how others might interpret such an incident. And that's a business reality.

Since when did recognizing a business reality become a slap in the face of social media? My only takeaway regarding Jim's future direction is his hesitance to start Twittering, because it lends permanence to ephemeral thoughts, unedited.

[/pd]

==>>"then part of the conversation is the strategic holding of one's tongue when faced with an unexpected statement."

is that not the equivalent of speaking with a "Forked tongue" ??

"Since when did recognizing a business reality become a slap in the face of social media?"

Since the time somebody called for a ban on the PR vertical or specfically a company !!

[Ike]

No Peter, it is not speaking with a "forked tongue." It is the recognition that the first thought that pops into our mind isn't always the right one.

If you get hit in the back of the head with a wad of paper, and you turn around to see someone laughing, do you immediately write an e-mail to the boss asking for the dismissal of the one who laughed? Surely she must be the one who threw the paper, right?

The whole point of all those folds and curves in our cerebral cortex is to give us time to digest, and NOT be slaves to our primitive brain. That's what elevates us. That's what allows us to see the unintended consequences of our actions BEFORE THEY HAPPEN, instead of blindly following the twitch of instinct.

You (and Coulsen apparently) want to fault Jim Louderback for having a reaction, and not re-programming himself to instantly follow the guidelines of open-source culture. Real people don't change that quickly. Societies don't change that quickly, no matter how fast the bleeding edge is traveling down that road.

If withholding an impulse thought and preventing it from becoming a public utterance is now equivalent to having a "forked tongue," then count me among the reptiles.

Oh, Peter... for the record, have you ever edited a post or a comment prior to sending it?

[Vergel Evans]

One of the un-comfortable realities of working on a corporate network is having to be constantly aware that every click and data exchange is captured. Now with every site / technology releasing an RSS feed. We have no idea where that data is going beyond the intended use, or context. I suspect these issues will become even more important over time as these feeds last as data captures on some server from now till forever....

So until there is a metatag system that can convey context... it would be a safe bet to edit/tailor every web interaction accordingly.

[John Koetsier]

This episode reminds me of why I like independent bloggers better: more truthful, less biased. There's more ego and less superego, if you prefer. Unvarnished, certainly, but also authentic.

I understand the apology, Steve, but I have to say that it lessens my respect for you (which was already lowered by the way you *didn't* handle the whole Edelman-WalMart affair.)

. . .
. . .

I get free subs to a bunch of tech magazines ... all of them get recycled immediately except for Wired.

. . .
. . .

BTW, a better way for PC Mag and all the other tech magazines to react would be to start thinking about why this happens, and how they can make themselves relevant in a world that includes Digg and TechCrunch and Original Signal and Slashdot.

[Ike]

Exactly how are the magazines "irrelevant?"

It's great that Steve Rubel is pulling in vast quantities of information about technology, and even specific feeds tied to his clients. But if it's not mirroring the experience of most readers, then as a PR rep it's not helping his clients.

Let's say Rubel reads a feed of a mixed review of a client's product. Does the RSS feed Rubel subscribes to contain information about where in the magazine this appears? Is it front, back, or middle? Is it in a special advertising section, or an advertorial section? Heck - does it appear on a page that the stiff subscription cards force you to see? How about on a page opposite an ad for a competitor?

I would think that 11-million people reading pulp would still be classified as relevant - and any PR firm pitching that magazine would want to replicate the experience of those readers in monitoring.

I'm willing to give Steve Rubel the benefit of the doubt, and write it off to wishful thinking. Sure, it would be swell if we went to a cheaper, faster, and more dynamic flow of information. I'll bet he wishes everyone would save trees with RSS. I don't blame him.

But it certainly seems that some here want to punish Jim Louderback for his instinctual reaction. (A reaction that he HAS NOT acted upon, and that you'd never know he had if he hadn't written about it.) Just remember that you're not just trashing Jim, you're also trashing the 11-million who read his magazine - and who, through learning and exposure, might just be trying to walk down the trail that Rubel and the early adopters are blazing. Not to mention the hundreds of millions who aren't savvy enough to care about PC Magazine yet - they have to start somewhere.

I am smelling a serious case of tech elitism here.

[Tery Spataro]

I was down on twitter too. Thought it was a waste of time but in certain context it could be promote community conversation. It was Aliza Sherman, who twittered today, "that Twitter is like a big dinner party." I love this analogy.

I was hoping that the next level of twittering to be in context to certain subjects could create the right widgets for right websites. People who twitter about food will "create" the widget for food blogs.

[Bill Denneen]

This brings back memories. Magazine people have always been sensitive about the subject of their decline! In 1999, when I publicized some data (that the publishers all had already) showing a dramatic drop-off in readers, they wanted my head. It didn't help that I speculated that the Internet might have something to do with the audience change. Publishers spend a lot of money on paper and ink, and they invest a lot of time and energy trying to convince people that paper and ink are irreplaceable. They are obviously frightened of the alternative.

Still, here it is 8 years later and most of them are still in business. (And I'm no longer in the business of readership analysis.)

Here's a link to the more balanced of the stories about the brouhaha at the time:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3065/is_4_28/ai_54300487

[B.L. Ochman]

Yes, Steve made a mistake. But Jim Louderback made a bigger one by using the blog he chose as his forum. Just in case you took Brian/Amanda seriously, read this http://www.whatsnextblog.com/archives/2006/10/just_in_case_you_ever_took_amanda_chapel_seriously.asp

Move on.

[Peter Shankman]

Coulson: You kidding me? Steve3 insulted the man's magazine. That's not only idiotic from a PR standpoint, but it's similar to being in a bar with another guy and his girlfriend and saying, "Yeah, dude, she's not really that hot. She's ugly, and I wouldn't do her." Expect a punch to the head to follow.

Whether media companies listen to their readers or not has NO BEARING here, since Steve said he doesn't read the magazine.

It was an insult. It wasn't an editorial comment. Big difference.

[Amanda Chapel]

B.L Ochman,

I did second guess my private note to you at the time but you continue to prove it most accurate.

Thank you.

- Amanda chapel

[Net]

This is a typical example of a corporate PR excuse. It does not feel genuine at all. The Talmud says: "What comes from the heart - touches the heart" . This is something corporate PR agencies (and most PR agencies for that matter) never seems to get.

Having said that I perfectly understood the "blunder" and the nessecary apology...

[vaspers the grate]

Hooray for blogocombat.

[Rogers Cadenhead]

I can't believe that Jim Louderback's response to that short instant message was to publicly threaten a blacklist of all Edelman clients (which by extension threatens Steve Rubel's job). He should be the one apologizing here, especially considering how much publications like PC Magazine are dependent on publicists.

The fact that comp subscriptions are often thrown straight into the recycling bin has to be well-known to Loudermilk, considering how many tech magazines are using free subs to increase eyeballs. Before I stopped accepting them to save a few trees, I was offered 3-5 free subscriptions a month to tech magazines like his. Hate to tell you this, Jim, but most went unread. I read the mags online or not at all.

[Housewife]

I can't imagine a blog I'm less interested in than a couple of PR Guys.

I don't understand PR I don't buy magazines and I don't even understand half the articles in PC World Magazine.

That being said, this tirade from one blog to another... brain tumors... holy shit... it's pure genius!

I almost care.

I'm even bookmarking you.... virtually, ya' know... since you and I both toss all our mags (rags) in the bin.

Nice PR... the WWF of the geek squad... I likey.

[Michael Sommermeyer]

In 1992 I told my new boss how someday we all would create our own newscasts with our computers and could dump our TVs in the trash. In 2007, we can do just as I predicted with RSS, YouTube and various other sources. But no one is smashing the video box.

It's exciting to find and share new tech tools that save us time, reduce clutter and become cool apps on the desktop. And in that excitement, it's easy to forget you're an early adopter.

It also is easy to be too honest on Twitter. The intimacy effect draws the writer into a false sense of sharing with little regard to the reality that millions can read your thoughts. It's also easy to add to other conversations, due to the limitations of 140 characters, and the context becomes lost.

Combine excitement for a product, service, et.al. with snippets of a conversation, and it's no wonder a person's thoughts can be misinterpreted or arrive in half-context. We're all learning how to engage in this new social world, and I'm sure other mistakes will be made.

[vaspers the grate]

"Amanda Chapel" appears to be a simple thug-like troll.

His/their client must've asked them to "make it go viral" and "use Web 2.0 tools", but the campaign failed, so now we hear anti-Cluetrain rantings.

To argue for hierarchy, command and control, consumer passivity, and the elevation of establishment media...?

Obviously a troll who craves attention.

Let "Amanda Chapel" and others who fear some "cult" of the "amateur" persist in their Luddite frenzies. Yawn. Slightly underwhelming.

[Amanda Chapel]

Vaspers,

Put down the pipe long enough to focus please. You are responding to the wrong thread! You want "The Dark Side of the Citizen Media Revolution" by Andrew Keen on Britannica's Blog (see http://tinyurl.com/ywl6db ). Also note: in the comments there, the "troll" attribution was dismissed as lame ad hominem argument and deemed invalid.

Good luck in rehab.

- Amanda

[/pd]

"But it certainly seems that some here want to punish Jim Louderback for his instinctual reaction."

..and it certainly appears ok to have instinctual reaction but not freedom of speech /thought ??

[Steve Coulson]

Amanda, if you're trying to seduce me into resubscribing to your Twitter feed after your anti-cluetrain rant at the weekend, this isn't the way to do it :)

And yes, I completely understand Steve's motivation. That's what made my stomach churn.

[James Forbes]

Twitter is for people who think their presence and random thoughts are of import to the world. I am one of hundreds of mere mortals who strangled the twitter bird on my desktop.

I am a mere mortal, and I think we should be held accountable forf our words and deeds. I've always signed my work and accepted the consequences.

Best wishes from the underbelly of America.

Jim Forbes
Escondido, CA

[vaspers the grate]

Twitter is a nano-blogging asynchronous chat mechanism for providing Status Updates, links, and insight to a select group of Followers.

To bash Twitter is similar to bashing bathtubs, bicycles, computers, blogs, wikis, Web 2.0, etc.

The clueless attack the unfamiliar.

They see what the majority are doing with a tool, and disapprove, but fail to see what they themselves could use the tool for. A common Luddite maneuver.

[vaspers the grate]

@ "amanda chapel": Your poor attempt to debate, by using drug innuendos, is typical of a troll.

It's best to ignore such bait, as Doc Searls has said about you in his recent "live 'training" post.

[B.L. Ochman]

Amanda - to quote Dan Gilmor, for whom I have the utmost respect, "I don’t use a pseudonym. I stand behind my words. ... But feel free to have the last word, “Amanda” –

[Bob]

easy - Mr. Rubel got a talking to by edelman uppers and now has to back up - just like trucks in NYC, we hear the BEEP BEEP BEEP of the backup.

[Jeremy Toeman]

The phrase "I apologize if you and the editorial team at Ziff Davis took offense to my post" is NOT AN APOLOGY. It's wordsmithing and it's implying that HE is the one with the problem, not that YOU did something wrong.

An APOLOGY is "I am sorry to you and the editorial team for writing an offensive post" since it WAS offensive.

[Steve Rubel]

Make no mistake, it is an apology. I am sorry that I wrote it.

[Amanda Chapel]

Vaspers,

Let me explain: I could have referred to your cultist noise as flatulence but... there's certainly a “heady” nature to your diatribes. Now if I attributed it to some kind of disability... THAT would be troll-like. Instead, I think the drug innuendo assumes it’s self induced and gives you the benefit of the doubt.

BL,

You, like Vaspers, are on the wrong thread. Your good friend “Dan” was summarily dismissed here http://tinyurl.com/ywl6db . The topic in this thread is Rubel’s faux pas and his apology.

With regard to the last word with you, what comes to mind is in my note to you last October. Thanks again for the reminder. Some things never change.

- Amanda

[Oyvind]

@Jeremy and Steve too: This is infact a trend. Just pay attention. Almost everytime someone apologizes, they say "...if I offended you."

It has become the standard way of saying it, which is a bit strange. As Jeremy says, it doesn't sound like an apology but puts the the problem on the one who was offended.

I'm not talking about Steve's apology, just wanting to put my finger on something I find interesting.

Just watch out for the "if I offended you" the next time you read an apology online, on print or someone says it...

[Jeremy Pepper]

Wait - you sorry you wrote the apology or the Twitter? A life lesson: only apologize if you mean it.

[Steve Rubel]

Jeremy, I am sorry for what I Twittered about PC Mag.

[Humphrey Bogus]

Am I the only one annoyed by the misuse of "populous" instead of "populace" on a blog by and about people who write and speak for a living?

[Joe Buhler]

As a grown up - why twitter? Isn't there enough noise already?

[milo]

Now I know exactly why I don't use this hype product.

[engtech]

To quote myself:

"Like all public web communication people will lose their jobs and destroy relationships over Twitter before they realize that it’s all public, it’s all archived, and it’s all searchable (but you can restrict messages to only go to friends)."

http://engtech.wordpress.com/2007/03/22/howto-twitter-rss-broadcast-feeds-twitterbot-guide/

[scott baradell]

Reminds me why I've enjoyed my cave so much.

[scott baradell]

And is Jeremy bickering with Steve again? Back to the cave, stat.

[Alice Marshall]

I'm with BL, what's a nice gentleman like Jim Louderback doing in a dump like Drama Queen Train Wreck blog?

[Sean]

Damn I love honesty! As another said, it's too bad that business always has to get in the way of it :(

Steve may have made a mistake saying that, considering his company works with PC Mag, but I think Jim's response is over the friggin top. Blacklist his whole company because Steve makes a random 100 char comment that he doesn't read the magazine? That's more offensive in my opinion.

[Amanda Chapel]

Shut up Alice. I've been a harbinger of this Cluetrain Wreck. Don't you dare hang it on me.

Listen, a least Rubel has the sense to open his mind and reconsider. Your comment Alice is the stuff of what got him in trouble.

- Amanda

[Rob Usdin]

Just curious Steve - if you don't read the magazine - why get it even if it is free?

You're just making more trash. Just cancel the subscription.

Or at least give the old copies to a good cause. A lot of groups that send care packages to the troops in Iraq will take the magazines and include them. Just cut your name from the cover.

--*Rob