Newspapers appear to be taking to the new "I'm a fan of..." feature in Facebook... but I was wondering why The New York Times shows up on my "Fan of.." list as a "product," while The Roanoke Times (no relation) is a "store."

I guess it's just because the sign-up page's top categories are "Products" and "Local." My local paper recognized that was a keyword, instead of entering through the product menu, which includes Communications as a sub category.

Curiously, the first two "fans" whose Facebook posts alerted me to this were a California-based New York native "fanning" the NYT and another Californian signing up as a fan of the Roanoke paper. What we have in common, I guess, is being fans of newspapers in general... particularly newspapers that are open to new ideas -- like promoting themselves through Facebook. Time (or the Times?) will tell.

Meanwhile, down in D.C., online journalism guru Rob Curley of the Washington Post blogged recently that his company's chairman is "probably as big of a Facebook fan as you will find."

Though he's only had a Facebook account since probably July or August of this year, the guy knows more about how the site works (and more importantly, what it means) than probably any other traditional media executive in the country. And he hasn't just jumped on the bandwagon -- he's been talking up Facebook for at least two years that I know of. The guy flat-out gets it.

Curley's blog goes into detail about the Post's newstracker application, which lets you subscribe to news searches.

Related: Facebook's new advertising plans
Personally, I'm not convinced that the system can stay sufficiently clutter free to hold my interest. I don't want to spend any more hours browsing, adjusting preference menus and being tempted to blog about the latest developments. (Heh.) With all those scores of developer-wizards competing to distract me, I'll never get anything done.
Elsewhere, look into the privacy concerns.

Very loosely related:
Rob Curley on journalism grads' skills
Roanoke Times Dan Radmacher column on Harvard study of media bias and politics


3:28:48 PM  #