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The promise of social media was that the good information and content would rise to the top while the crap would go unnoticed. When this all really started picking up steam in 2007, the idea was that by crowdsourcing journalism, opinions, and curation, we would no longer have to sift through as much junk. People would be able to post what they wanted and the stuff that deserved to be exposed would stand out.
It's 2012 and we're still not getting it right.
On sites that are intended to bring out the best of the best, it seems that quantity is easier than quality and the results show.
Twitter can be gamed and those who tweet a ton of nonsense get more exposure than the ones who only tweet when they have something to say.
Facebook is worse. The super-social types rise to the top of news feeds thanks to an awful
EdgeRank system, making important posts from those with discerning tastes fail to make it into the stream.
Social news sites like Digg and Reddit are faced with the same dilemma. Rushing to get votes and posting tons of crap yields better rewards than posting only what really deserves exposure.
This needs to change. It will change. Social media won't be able to stand on its own if it continues down the road of rewarding broadcasters. The problem with broadcasters is that they don't have time to listen. If everyone's broadcasting, nobody is listening.
It will change. Give it time.
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