Don’t spread gossip online. That’s it, that’s the post.

Proverbs 18:8 “A gossip’s words are like choice food that goes down to one’s innermost being.”

This is an admonition to fellow Christians to be mindful of what they believe and spread online. Maybe we think that because we don’t actually know the people, it’s not gossip?  It is gossip. It’s wrong. 

I get that it scores points on “Christian Twitter” to dunk on the Moderates/Libs. It’s always the mega church pastors that get hit, right? Mega churches put out sermons on video. So everyone can see what they teach. 

From time to time you see 1-2 minute clips from megachurch sermons pulled out to prove they have gone soft on sin. At no time is any benefit of the doubt given. The pastor can’t have misspoken, can’t have been taken out of context. The sermon may be 35 minutes of multiple points and sub points, but this 60 second clip is all that matters.

The clips are never plain. It’s never one of these guys saying, “I believe homosexual behavior is not a sin.” It’s never that clear.  The new clip is often tied back to another clip previously used for the same purposes.

The supposed heresy often contradicts what the church has previously, publicly said. Their belief statement on the web likely doesn’t reflect this new theological view.

The position is, the bad church/pastor publicly publishes their teachings where anyone can see them, but are, at the same time, secretly teaching heresy/bad theology. They have secretly decided to call sin holy and good. Not only are they wrong about their belief, but they are nefarious liars, saying the “right” thing in some places, but secretly leading the sheep astray.

This is the claim of some. These people take to social media and trumpet their discovery of false teaching. By all means, let’s get the mob back together. Who’s got the pitchforks and who has the torches?

You know what you don’t see? “I heard this and it disturbed me, so I called the pastor in question…. I reached out to the church highlighted in this clip…” Nope. Why would you ask a liar, right? They might be able to explain away your major issue. You might find out the clip doesn’t reveal the full theology of the speaker.

And then there are the guys who make a living out of doing this. They post hours of video proving some ministries have it all wrong.  You know what you never see? A video where they investigate and find out the critics were wrong. You will never see a headline that read, “We heard there was heresy, but we only found truth!”

Why is that? 

Why do regular Christian people retweet/repost/repeat unproven gossip? Why do people watch these expose’ videos? Proverbs 18:8 has it right. Gossip is so tasty.

Controversy breeds interest. If you feel you are right, or at least “righter” than them, you feel superior.  There’s a bit of allure to this “secret knowledge” that these posts and videos give out. You can be in the know. You can be someone who was not fooled. 

It’s “I may not be perfect, but I’m not that bad,”  combined with “I know things others don’t.”  Delicious, yet rotten to its core.

Here’s 3 problems with sharing these things:

1. You don’t know anything. You just don’t. Unless the person you’re criticizing said clearly, ‘This is my belief” you cannot know their theology from a few minutes of one sermon. You have to jump to too many conclusions. You don’t have enough information to use inductive logic properly. 
2. The experts you are listening to don’t know anything either. Every time I watch one of these long videos that “proves” something, it’s filled with conjecture. They have a list of things that, if you tilt your head and squint just right,  will prove what they are saying. But if anything is not exactly what they suggest, the house of cards tumbles down. I get it. They dug up some dirt, they got an insider feeding them info. They connected the dots, they put the jigsaw puzzle together. Those who subscribe to these theories refuse to entertain other possibilities. Because if they think for one second one piece of evidence might not be correctly interpreted, then their entire theory crashes down. 
3. It’s not biblical. This isn’t how you deal with false teachers. Before the internet you would never jump to public condemnation before you took several more steps. Matthew 18 lays out a pretty good path to conflict resolution. There are 4 steps. Even if you claim that public posts online counts as taking something to the Church, there are 2 steps before that point.  If you are really concerned about this brother, this congregation, then you will go to them and confront them in love. You will get the truth. But, if you are honest, you care more about feeling better about yourself than correcting a brother. 

That’s hard to hear. The tendency to believe the worst about fellow Christians is a cancer in the Church. The habit of attacking people who are wrong (or we think are wrong) rather than lovingly, biblically correcting them is a terrible thing in the Church. Spreading online gossip is spreading lies. Reposting these hit pieces doesn’t do one thing to grow the kingdom of God. 

When I see a post, I’m tempted to reply with “Wow, what did the church say when you reached out to them about this?”

Brother and sister, I implore you. Don’t share these posts, don’t spread gossip. I know it’s “choice food” and it feels so good. Resist. If you are truly concerned, reach out to the pastor, leader, congregation in question. I know that takes more time than hitting retweet, but it’s the right thing to do. 

If you can’t reach out, then pray. Everyone can do that. 

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7 Ways to Make Social Media Better in 2021

Millions use social media on a regular basis. During 2020 and the COVID Pandemic, people have used it even more. And the flaws of social media have been showing. Misinformation, accusations of censorship, comment wars and more have made using social media a worse experience than ever before.

Here are 7 things you can do to help make social media better in 2021:

1. Don’t share posts you don’t know are true (even if you hope they are true).

Understand that confirmation bias is real, and we all have it. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Reality is almost never simple, and a meme that matches your wildest dreams is probably not completely true. A picture of someone else’s social media post is not proof or evidence. Do a little bit of research and make sure what you are posting is true.

2. Follow people with different viewpoints.

One of the ways social media encourages echo chambers is it reinforces what you interact with. If you only interact with one perspective, eventually you see less of other perspectives. If no one challenges your viewpoint, it’s easy to adopt false information as true. Break out of the echo chamber.

3. Don’t use social media for purely political purposes.

Be social. Remember when social media was fun? When you were catching up with old friends? Enjoying pics from family? Social media doesn’t have to be about politics. Use these platforms to enhance your relationships, instead of arguing.

4. Don’t read the comments.

Seriously, make a concerted effort to not get involved. Have you ever known of anyone to change their mind about religion or politics because of a comment war? I know, it’s hard. Especially when people are so wrong. But don’t join every comment thread. Make an effort to reduce the amount of arguments you have online. You will be happier.

5. Develop thicker skin.

Not every post is directed at you. There is no need to comment on every post you disagree with. Just scroll past.

6. Blood is thicker than water and friendship is thicker than ideas.

It’s sad that some ideas can come between friends and family. It’s completely possible to hold opposing ideas, and be friends. Just look at the late SCOTUS Justices Scalia and Ginsburg. They were on completely opposite ends of the spectrum, but were good friends. People are more than the sum of their political ideas. We can, and should, care about more than what political party someone is in, or whether they support the same causes we do.

7. Reduce the amount of time you spend on social media.

Doom Scrolling is real. And if you’ve allowed yourself to be entombed in a Social Media echo chamber, the world can seem bleak. Like the world is against you. But that’s not reality. Social Media, by it’s very nature, simplify’s ideas for easier sharing.

Read a book, read a news paper, watch a documentary, watch a news report. Don’t use Social Media as your main window to the world. In addition, call a friend or family member. Text them. Go on a walk. Interact with people and world outside of social media. You will be happier and healthier this year.

Misinformation on Facebook is Its Own Fault

I originally posted this on my Facebook feed. I understand the irony in posting complaints about FB’s algorithms on a feed that is controlled by that same algorithm.

Facebook has created the misinformation problem it has, but won’t take real steps to fix it.

Facebook helped create the environment that fed into the echo chambers that spread misinformation. Their current attempts to fix this are doomed to failure and could have unintended consequences. And they will not fix the root cause of the issue because it would hurt them financially.

Facebook desperately wants to squash misinformation. Their current method is to flag any post on certain subjects with a warning and link to what Facebook thinks is accurate information. There is no review of the posts which are tagged. Write any post, fact or false, with certain keywords and the warnings come up.

This has the consequence of classifying both true and untrue content together. Every post about these subjects is suspect. But Facebook will make sure to tell us all the truth.

An open platform should not set themselves up as the arbiter of what is true and correct. Aside from the fact they can be wrong, this can end up with two unwanted results.

First, there are those who want FB to be regulated. This move to try to self-regulate content sends a signal that content on these open platforms should be regulated. As objectionable as it is to have FB tell me what is true, imagine some sub committee made of up government employees or, worse, partisans appointed by what ever party happens to be in charge telling you what is true or false.

The second undesired result is that FB becomes a publisher not a platform. The natural next step beyond telling users what is true is to actively stop users from seeing what is false.

FB becomes a publisher, and is liable for what is allowed on its channel. And that goes beyond political speech. All sorts of copyright issues come into play. IP owners may not sue a 20 year old for posting their property without permission, but there’s money to be made in suing the publisher who posts it.

The biggest problem is that these attempts to stop the spread of misinformation and false information attack a symptom of a problem Facebook created and amplified with its own algorithms.

FB created news feeds which “feed” our own confirmation biases and create echo chambers for misinformation. The way to fix that is not for FB to tell me what is fact or fiction, but to change the algorithms to show a wider range of ideas. That addresses a core issue with the platforms in general.

People form common interest ties. They post common interest content. FB sees that you interact with that content and those friends and pages. They show you more of that content. Facebook bragged about this change a few years ago. They are showing us more of what we like and less of what we don’t.

FB would say this makes your experience on the platform better. It also make FB more profitable.

Companies buy exposure on my newsfeed from FB. These companies enjoy a very targeted approach to buying this space on my feed. If Facebook can narrow the types of posts, which represent the sort of interests I have, they can offer a better deal to advertisers. If I see posts and information across 100 interest areas, and interact with a broader range of people and pages, companies have to spend more, across a broader range, to get me to buy their stuff. If FB can lower that range to 75 or 50 areas of interest, their ad placements become more effective. Companies buy more ads and FB makes more money.

They have been doing this for years. Here’s how this practice led to the rapid sharing of what people think is problematic information. The medium inherently causes transmission issues.

Social media’s inherent requirement to distill complex, nuanced content down to simpler ideas comes into play. The “TL: DR” -too long, didn’t read- response was created because reading long and complex information online is hard. (Thanks for read this long and complex content in the internet)FB needs us to keep scrolling, so we can see more ads. So they prioritize images and videos, and downplay text. Any post or comment over a few sentences gets shortened with a “see more” link, so you can quickly scroll past it.

The result is complex issues reduced to memes and emotional entreaties. Now add the FB algorithm.

So person A has their friend group. A political meme gets shared from a page. Several people share it in that group. FB’s computers take note that content from that page was popular in this group of people. Meanwhile, another meme which didn’t fit into the group’s biases was seen and the group did not share it. FB notes that content was not popular.

Now, when that first page posts something, the algorithm doesn’t know whether it’s true or not. It just shows the content to the group. Meanwhile, content showing a contrary opinion from the 2nd source is not shown to them.

This goes on for literally years. Information that the group likes and that affirms their biases is reinforced to FB as what should be in their feed. Contrary information is reduced. Because FB shows us what we like, we eventually end up in an echo chamber. Ideas we welcome get reshared and commented on and liked. Ideas we don’t like, get seen less often.

Now election time comes. FB’s algorithm cannot distinguish fact from fiction. So it shares both true and false information with the group. And since FB has learned that contrary opinions don’t get the attention, they cut them out of the feed.

One day a piece of untrue information is shared. It fits what the group has previously interacted with, so the algorithm shows the group. No contrary information is provided. Person A sees that lots of their friends have shared the info. And since it fits into a preferred bias, and little to no opposing views are shared, person A believes it. And shares it, too.

Cut to today. We’ve got rampant misinformation and questionable sources being shared on Facebook. How do we fix it?

Facebook labels anything in the subject as potentially false and provides links to what FB thinks is true. This is bad policy.

To really fix it, FB has to stop tailoring newsfeeds the way it does. They need to broaden what is shown to users. Any page or person I have shown any interest in, by liking for friending them, should have the same opportunity to show up on my feed as those I regularly like or comment on.

This will impact the advertising dollars FB uses to operate. And that is why we see ham handed bandaids like what is happening now, instead of real change in the root causes of the issue.

Now, this isn’t all FB’s fault. We will still have confirmation bias and a tendency to resist what we don’t agree with. But FB can help by not reinforcing those tendencies. What they are doing now is wrong headed and will end badly.

How to Get a Warranty Repair From Dell: Public Shaming

Dell, like many electronics companies, does not like to repair your computer under warranty. Especially your laptops. People treat consumer electronics as consumables these days, and fixing your laptop for free costs them money, when they would rather you buy a new laptop, which makes them money.

This is the story of how my daughter’s 5-month old, less-than-$200 laptop almost cost $120 to repair, but eventually Dell stood by their product and repaired it under warranty.

My daughter, who was 12 at the time, had saved her money to buy a new laptop. She had just enough to buy an inexpensive netbook and a subscription to Office 365. She wanted to write, she’s thinking of becoming an author one day. We went to the local electronics store, and decided on a Dell. We chose Dell over some other brands because Dell was known to us.

For 5 months my daughter babied this computer. It was moved from her desk to our room every night. It was never dropped, bumped or mishandled. She took good care of it, better care than I took of my own laptop, which cost 5 times more.

So she comes to me with a broken hinge. It takes about 30 seconds to realize that dell has designed this laptop with metal screws going into less than 1/4 inch of plastic. 3 of the 4 pieces of plastic have snapped. Only one screw it holding. Every time she opens the laptop stress is placed on the screws. The brittle plastic could not stand up to the strain of normal use.

This is an obvious design flaw.

See the small pieces of plastic on the small screws. That’s all that holds the screen onto the hinge.

So, I get on the dell website, and chat up a customer service rep. He has just told me the computer is under warranty, BUT his supervisor has told him the damage is physical damage and not covered under warranty. I have sent him pictures of the damage, and the case is perfect, not even a scratch. But the hinge is broken, both are really. I ask to have the supervisor get on the chat. He arranges a phone call.

A while later the supervisor calls. He starts to explain why broken hinged are considered physical damage. Starts with drops. I stop him and remind him there is no damage to the case, the computer has not been dropped. At this point he says the craziest thing: Sometimes opening and closing the laptop can cause physical damage. ???

I, politely, go off on him for a bit. First, laptops are designed to open and close. And my daughter did not mistreat this computer. This is an obvious sign flaw, or manufacturer defect in the plastic. Neither of which negates my warranty claim. He changes his tune and suddenly the repair will be covered.

The box arrives and I send it off. You might think this is the end, but if you know much about warranty repairs, you know there is another hurdle.

You see, even though the CS supervisor has ruled my repair under warranty, the same “physical damage” dodge is in effect for other employees. A few days later I got an email from the repair depot saying my repair would not be covered and would cost $120.

OK, here we go. Same dance all over again, but now they have the computer. i call the tech, who doesn’t answer. So I call the customer service line. I need an out of warranty repair reclassified as a warranty repair. Who can help me? I get transferred from one person t another and finally back to a lady who decides she will be the brick wall. She starts reading her script. I interrupt. I ask if she has the power to classify the repair. She says no, and to let her finish. I stop her again, and basically I’m told that no supervisor will help me. She will not transfer me, she will not help. I explain my conversation with the previous supervisor. She says I would need to talk to him. I ask to be transferred to him, and she refuses to transfer me.

Now, look, I’ve been polite, but direct, up to this point. But this is the last straw. This woman could transfer me, but she won’t. She is saying that Dell will not stand by its product. She is saying the even though I was promised an under warranty repair I won’t be getting one. I am done. I am over Dell.

I have one last thing to try, and that is public shaming via social media. I know that Dell has a couple of active twitter accounts. So I start telling my story, mentioning their accounts. Eventually I get a response.

Dell isn’t stupid. This screen bezel will cost them about $50 to replace. How many people do I have to drive away with my public complaints about their product to make it worthwhile to fix what should ahem already been fixed.

So I get in contact with one of the accounts. I DM them the whole story, start to finish with pictures. They go to work. The next day I’m told the repair is underway, for free. The days after that I get a shipment notification, the laptop is on the way back. We get it back and it is repaired and ready to go.

It should not be necessary to basically threaten the brand of a major corporation to get them to stand behind their products. But that was what it took to get my daughter’s laptop repaired. Will it break again in another 5 months? I don’t know, but for now its working fine.

The State of News in America

It’s to the point where I just don’t believe any headline, and question every article.

Growing up, people used to trust the news to bring you facts; important stuff you needed to know. Generation X got older and we kept on not trusting authority. At some point 24 hour new TV stations were born, and talk radio got popular. And the country got polarized.

I stopped watching national TV news. When I listen to the radio I run everything through my own filter because I know whatever show I’m listening to has to get ratings first. Most of those are opinion shows anyway, but the TV news channels are in the same boat. How to make important stuff entertaining is the biggest concern. Even local news outlets fall into this.

There’s a big national story? Local news had better find a local link to that issue. So they ride the coattails of what national news tells America is important. Even if on a different day, in a different news cycle, the same story wouldn’t be important at all.

In college I took a couple journalism classes. One of the big things I look away was that every story has an angle. Every story has some approach to help make it interesting. Journalistic integrity was making sure that angle didn’t become too slanted. I’m not sure that’s a concern anymore. Do they still teach journalistic integrity and objectivity? If so, who do they use as examples?

Click bait on social media is a huge problem. I have been systematically deleting clickbait links from my Facebook feed. It’s pretty liberating. These posts are designed to make you click through, and then the site shows you advertising, a lot of advertising, while you read the story which is generally more hype than substance. “You won’t believe what…” Nope, I won’t. And I won’t click it. If you want to tell me something, get my attention, write a real headline! But even the real news stores from some of these news sites are suspect. You just can’t take them at face value.

Did that bakery get a gag order or not? That’s the latest one in my Facebook feed. One article says the 1st amendment rights of this couple has been violated. Another says it hasn’t. Solution? Go read the source material for yourself and figure it out. But who takes the time to do this? Most people, I suspect, simply latch onto whatever slant they already like and use that to bolster their current opinion of the politics, issues, etc… You know things are out of hand when joke posts from satirical sites are passed on like they are true. Because we can’t tell the difference anymore! Social media is littered with junk news posts. There might be some fact in them, but you have to dig for it. They’re almost all more slant than angle.

That’s not to say that there aren’t news stories that are well written, balanced pieces. There are. But they are not sensational and they don’t get the views/ratings.

The only solution I’ve found is to keep your filter on. Approach every story knowing that it will probably be full of someone else’s opinion and agenda. But you can probably sort through and find the facts. Then make your own judgement on what the news in that story really is.

New Facebook Page Post Reach is Horrible- How Bad is It?

Recently an Ad Age article said Facebook has now admitted that the organic views of fan pages are dropping. Significantly. In fact, Facebook suggests that the best way to “maximize” delivery of your content is to pay them. Fan pages, to them, are not communities of people who like and want content from a brand. They are ways for businesses to advertise more cheaply and effectively through Facebook in a “social context” format.

For small businesses, non profits, and generally anyone who has a fan page that isn’t specifically about selling something, this is bad news. Previously you could assume that people who became a fan of your page had a decent shot at seeing the content they signed up for. Now, only a small percentage of people see the content.

The only way to bypass the Facebook imposed limitations is to post something that your fans engage with so much that their behavior through likes and shares and comments causes the post to propagate beyond the limitations. Of course, it will be seen through those networks, not by the people who have already signed up. So, while it’s great if you have a post that generates huge engagement, the people who do the engaging and see the post through those social feeds may not be your current fans.

I wanted to see just how bad it was. My largest fans page is for my show Peculiar. I currently have 697 fans. (Crossed 700 during this experiment) Before these changes, I would normally see 60-75% of fans through organic views. That is, I’d post something and 65% or so of my fans would see it in their timeline. How bad are the new algorithms?

My page is a fan page for a TV show, with 700 fans. Many of the posts are video links to the show’s Youtube page.

For the experiment I used an event I ran during the holidays. We had the #10daysofPeculiar event on Peculiar’s FB fan page, where we brought back episodes of the show, posting one per day. With other extras posted in the afternoons. Half the videos we posted are not normally available online. I was aware of the new post reach issues, and wanted to help make sure fans didn’t miss the chance to see the episodes. So I boosted a few posts. I only spent $5 per boost, but with under 700 fans, that more than covered them. I selected showing the post to people who like the show and are friends of people who like the show. Here are the results. Number of views per day across all posts:

Guess which days got “boosted posts” and which days didn’t. You can see more detailed list of each post at the bottom of the post. I spent a total of $25 during the multi day event. Total organic views hit 956 over 12 days while views I paid for hit 7040, (over only 5 days of “boosted posts).

OK, I know, I did this over the holidays. I tried not to be too concerned with the views on Christmas Eve and Christmas. But the huge disparity between “boosted” posts and organic post is revealing. Even so, post engagement via likes and shares wasn’t that different. (That says more about my content than Facebook’s policies.)

The frustrating thing for many fan pages is that their fans have NO IDEA this is happening. Normally, once someone clicks like on your page, they don’t come back. They expect your content to show up in their new feed. If they see less, they just assume that your are posting less.

Then there is the issue of balance, where your are not supposed to post just ads. You need to engage your audience. Ask questions, give them value and content for free. So that when you do advertise or make an “ask” they will be engaged enough to respond. I am not the best at this. But these new algorithms mess that up badly. If you only “boost” posts that have advertisements in them, then the only posts that most fans see are the ones asking for money. Less than 25% see the other engagement posts. So you won’t see the same number of fans response when you sell something, or ask them to do something.

That stinks.

Facebook users probably don’t know, and if they did know… on the surface at least, they would likely think this was a great idea. Less ads, more content I want. They may not realize that this new system is set up to either pepper their feeds with sponsored posts, or reduce the content they want drastically. And Facebook? They are just trying to stay profitable. They have shareholders to think about now. Larger brands with big budgets won’t notice much.

In the mean time, people like me are looking for other ways to reach our fans on a consistent basis.

I am launching an email newsletter for Pup Tent Media, my production company. I will have the content for my various FB pages there (Peculiar, Flawed, and any new ventures…), send it out once a month. At least then, I know people who signed up for the content will see the email, even if they don’t open it. They at least have the chance.

To make sure you never miss the information about Pup Tent Media’s projects, sign up now!

Details of the #10DaysofPeculiar Posts:

Dec 20: Text post received 158 organic views, 6 page likes.

Dec 20: New Event, 19 organic views, 1 like, 11 people from those invited “attending”

Dec 21: New Cover Photo, 3 likes, 6 people saw it.

Dec 21: Video link, boosted post, $5 budget. 26 organic views, 760 paid. 6 likes

Dec 22: Video link, boosted post. $5 budget. 33 organic views, 1110 paid views. 3 likes

Dec 22: Video link, 37 organic views, 3 likes

Dec 23: Video link, boosted post, $5 budget, 34 organic views, 1391 paid views, 7 likes

Dec 23: Video link, 37 organic views, 3 likes.

Dec 24; Video link, 46 organic views, 3 likes

Dec 24, Text post, 95 organic videos, 4 likes

Dec 24, Video link, 53 organic views, 3 likes

Dec 25, Text post, 83 organic views, 4 likes

Dec 25, Video link, 31 organic views, 2 likes

Dec 26, Video link, 61 organic views, 4 likes

Dec 27, Video link, 41 organic views, 2 likes

Dec 27, Text post, 50 organic views

dec 28, Video Link, 81 organic views, 5 likes

Dec 28, Video link, 114 organic views, 7 likes, 1 comment

Dec 29, Video link, boosted post, $5 budget, 26 organic, 1935 paid views, 6 likes, 1 comment

Dec 29, Text post, 121 organic views, 4 likes

Dec 30, Video link, 54 organic views, 4 likes

Dec 30, Video link, 42 organic views, 4 likes

Dec 31, Video link, boosted post, $5 budget, 20 organic views, 1844 paid views, 6 likes

Pastors: Should You Be On Twitter?

Specifically, minister-types: Should you be on twitter?

I know that many of you cringe at the thought of social media. The imagined image of you, sitting at a computer, trying to keep up with responding to messages on Facebook sends you running to the dark corner of your office. I understand. The volume of email and phone calls you already have to keep up with is overwhelming. Unless you just like social media, you may be choosing to pass.

But twitter isn’t the same as other social media outlets. The 140 character limit requires conversations and responses to be short.

The shortened form (140 characters) limits conversations. It’s almost perfect for tweeting scriptures. And devotional thoughts. Recently, the NY Times had an article about this very thing. Part of the article included an interview with a Twitter executive:

“Pastors tell me, Twitter is just made for the Bible,” Ms. Díaz-Ortiz said.

It’s close. On average, verses in the King James Version are about 100 characters long, leaving room to slip in a #bible hashtag and still come in under the 140-character limit.

And proverbs are powerful draws on Twitter.

Why do religious leaders have so much more impact on twitter?

I think it’s because people do want to hear truth. They crave it. But our society is so busy, finding time to read and study is very hard. People will subscribe to your twitter feed and hear truth and scripture from someone they trust.

Should you be on twitter? Yes. Don’t miss a great opportunity to speak into the lives of people who care the truth you can share.

Nielson Social Media Stats

Here’s a look at the latest report on social media stats. 18-34 year olds still top age group.

Nielsen social-media-report

View more presentations from Jennifer Pricci

Wrong Worship

A few weeks ago the pastor was preaching about worship, and wanted to show how we often times go through the motions, and really don’t mean what we are singing. In fact, things might be really different if we sang what we really meant. So our worship team snagged a few songs and rewrote the lyrics. Below is the result.

Then our media team took the clip and just threw it up onto Youtube. We talked about taking the video and making it into an “infomercial” package that other churches could use as a stand alone piece, but haven’t taken the time yet.

Imagine my surprise when the video showed up in my twitter feed via about three other sources. It’s making the rounds on the net, picked up by Michael Hyatt and ChurchMag. At about 7000 views and counting, which isn’t huge numbers, but not bad for something that just got thrown up on the net. Maybe we will do that infomercial version after all.

Update: Someone threw it on Godtube (At least they gave credit for it…) so combined the views are almost at 60,000. Wow. Again, not huge numbers for the internet, but still bigger than anything we’ve put on youtube before.

“Dear Netflix” – This is a Test

Yesterday Netflix announced new pricing for its content. The reaction was immediate and loud.

Since then “Dear Netflix” has been a top trending topic on twitter and their Facebook page has gotten tens of thousands of negative comments. So as a company that appeals to people who want to stream content online, and has multiple social media accounts, I would have thought they would have been all over this.

I mean, the blog posts and email I got was so full of positive spin on how this was a good thing for me, I expected to see more of that. Instead there hasn’t been an echo from them, as far as I can see. No tweets, no replies, just silence as the social world repeatedly smacks them for raising prices.

Where are the posts about how you just renewed a bunch of the streaming content? How about defending the move? Or acknowledging that the circumstances about this stink for many of us? How about a straightforward admission that it costs a lot of money to get this streaming content, and they needed more revenue? Something?

Netflix is very quiet. How they respond is critical to their reputation online, which really matters for a video streaming company.

Dear Netflix, “Dear Netflix” is a test. Don’t fail it.