This week's maps: Social Starfish and the Map of Me

This week's media map post is a twofer, since I was distracted last week by the stimulating Media Re:public conference, all about how the rise of participatory media is intersecting with the news and information environment. In honor of that theme I present the Social Media Starfish:

Created in November by online marketer Darren Barefoot in response to a video by Web 2.0 guru Robert Scoble, the starfish is useful for public media makers thinking about different distribution, publicity and engagement platforms for involving publics with their content. It serves as a bit of a checklist in the round: create your film/tv show/radio broadcast/multiplatform extravaganza, post and tag related images, blog about it and contact related bloggers, announce publicity events and screenings, start an online community that mobilizes your public around a shared issue, distribute audio interviews about the project, etc. etc.

The problem is, in less than half a year, the starfish has already grown new limbs. It's a bit much to keep track of--as evidenced by Scoble's own decision to switch from blogging to communicating via FriendFeed, a service which aggregates his communications via Twitter, YouTube, Google Reader and other popular social media sites.

It's interesting to watch this recentralization of content and personal recommendations--a swing of the pendulum in response to rapid market growth in the Web 2.0 sector. It reflects user backlash in the face of tremendous media overload. French blogger Loic Le Meur demonstrates this well in this week's second map:

Le Meur isn't using FriendFeed, though. Instead, he's lobbying for the ability to feed all of this content back into his own blog. "What I like about my blog is that it is my space, I own it, I can customize it and change it, I do not depend on anybody," he writes.

This brings up a central issue for the long-term health of public media projects. Commercial social media platforms can serve as powerful distributors and amplifiers, but if makers depend on such platforms to host and promote their projects, they are subject to the whims of the market. In the rapidly consolidating Web 2.0 space, there are no long-term guarantees of either audience attention or hosting services.

What policies and organizing efforts can help to support digital platforms for robust public media? We'll be addressing those questions at Beyond Broadcast 2008, and hope you'll join us online and in DC.