Back in the day – and my days in the newsroom started about 15 years before yours did – a viewer asking for a copy of a story was a giant PITA. One would have to physically snag the air-check from the library, and then shuttle thru it to get the relevant section, copy said section, and then mail (how 20th century!) the tape to the viewer. $50 didn’t cover the costs fully, but it kept all but the serious, ready-to-pony-up-real-chedda viewers from asking.

Now that you can view and share clips from station sites, YouTube, and/or RedLasso, no one needs to do anything other than convert + upload after the piece airs. Phone the station? OMG, why not just @reply the reporter or post on their FB wall? Srsly.

Content creation/curation, like everything else, boils down to customer service. If you’re only interested in 1-way communication, customer service is likely a foreign term (can you say “post office”?) – but if you’d actually like to start and maintain a relationship with customers that will keep them happily buying from you, someone in your org take an ombudsman role. Official listener, if you will.

Otherwise, you’re just another interwebz douchebag.

With that said, I’m hesitant to involve myself in EA for the same reason I no longer actively digg, or do #FF: I perceive there’s lots of bottom feeders who are probably working the system in order to “up” their EA value.

Perhaps this is a good thing. After all, if EA awards good behaviour, perhaps the bottom feeders won’t be such bottom feeders?

Maybe. But if I understand human nature well, there will always be people looking for short cuts, or a quick way to up their score. On Twitter, it’s gaming for followers or lists. On Digg, it was reciprocal digging.

Regardless, I’m glad there’s some place to go for social media enthusiasts who have a competitive streak.