My last entry promised a series of posts about items on the MESH Team's to-do-list. Let me climb over the 800 pound elephant sitting between us to say that layoffs and reorganizations have eaten up a lot of everyone's time for the last two weeks. To add to the headaches, there's been some mutating virus (of the physical kind) that slowed many of us down. But, we've rallied and we're back. So, let me give you an update on the items that lead our task list:

I've had social news on the mind this week, especially with the announcement that the social news aspects of Netscape.com will move over to a new site.

It's either synchronicity or serendipity that the Project for Excellence in Journalism (part of the Pew Research Center) has a new study out -- The Latest News Headlines -- Your Vote Counts -- that compares the featured stories on mainstream media sites, with those on social news sites Digg, Reddit and Del.icio.us (as well as Yahoo News) [link via BBC News]

[Actually, looking at their list of sites, I would split a hair and say they looked at social linksharing sites (where users submit, vote and comment on links), which is a broader category that includes social news sites, which are explicitly news-focused: Newsvine, NowPublic, etc.]

During a one-week period this June, they analyzed the featured stories, and came up with some general observations:

* Disparity: There wasn't a lot of commonality between mainstream and social news sites; MSM sites tended to be more internationally-focused, to stick with big stories and come back to them again and again. On the other hand, the social news was more "twitchy" -- rapid cycling, with stories passing quickly out of view with little followup.

* Diversity: Social news sites were also a lot more likely to draw from non-news sites like blogs. In fact, "Digg users dug blogs more than any other source," which was slightly surprising to me, since so many Digg users reflexively profess to hate blogs (especially "blog spam," which is what they tend to call any intermediary link, even if it adds value and isn't simply an unneeded middleman).

* Differences: Additionally, they noted differences between the social news sites: Digg was more tech & science focused (shocker -- not uncharacteristic, even if it was iPhone launch week, too), as well as the most US-centric; Reddit was the lowest-traffic and most political; and Del.icio.us was the most eclectic.

On top of all that, they also looked at Yahoo News' user-influenced categories (Most E-Mailed, Most Viewed, Most Recommended), and also saw that the user picks didn't jibe with editors' picks, with some differentiation between categories --most viewed was most sensational (crime and celeb gossip).

(I would just like to add a personal observation -- for the photo sections, I would also note a healthy and consistent selection of cheesecake in the most popular photos for any given time -- swimsuits, celebrity skin and lingerie fashion shows.)

Anyway, their conclusions are a little soft (we need to keep an eye on these differences), but it's an interesting study.

I'm a little tired, so I may have mischaracterized the results. If I missed something, or if you have your own observations, please leave a comment.

Thanks -- Joe

A few items from around the Webs today:

* Creepy Old Pervs Don't Like It When You Call Them Creepy Old Pervs: OK, so this CNET opinion piece (' Ick, Old Married Guys on Facebook') by Sabena Suri, a 17-year-old rising senior and News.com summer intern, does have a few problems -- it's not the world's most well-written piece, and it goes off the rails when it pretty much paints every Facebook user over the age of 25 as "creepy" and pooh-poohs the idea that not-young people might find value in online social networks (she can only some up with a few "semi-legitimate" reasons).

If it's satire, it's not very good, and if it's serious... well, lets just say that it shows the author's age.

However, the worst part of it is that it buries the lede -- that it is, in fact, creepy, for old guys (the author defines it as 40-and-older) to try to be online friends with 17-year-old girls who they don't otherwise know.

This point kind of gets lost amongst the other pronouncements, like "It's unclear why you and your long-distance college buddy Mike couldn't just talk on the phone or e-mail," rather than use Facebook.

It's the young person's equivalent of "Get off my lawn, you young whippersnapper!" Oh, and presumably the phone is a landline.)

What's even better is the flood of comments -- 40 when I first looked this morning, up to 174 now. They range from indignant to condescending to clueless. It's pretty comical.

* You Probably Shouldn't Friend "Freddi Staur": Another CNET piece from yesterday, 'Facebook users pretty willing to add strangers as "friends"' says that in a random group of 200 Facebookers, 87% accepted a friend request from Freddi Staur, who they couldn't possibly know in real life, since it was a made up profile anagrammed from "ID Fraudster."

While it remains to be seen just how much of an identity theft threat the info you put in public profiles is (Tip: If you get a meme quiz that asks for your mother's maiden name and your bank account routing number, you probably shouldn't answer), it's a reminder that you're mostly better off just friending people you know in real life.

* On Campus, Trying to Connect: Lastly, to complete the Facebook and social networking trifecta, this Washington Post article suggests that incoming college freshmen these days might be using online social networks, cell phones, IMs and text messaging to hang on a little too tightly to friends and family back home, and not commit as fully to the college experience.

The article also suggests a few other potential downsides to electronically-mediated connections -- shorter interactions (you produce more words when you talk than when you type), more "on-the-fly" connections (since you can connect with people at any time), and the inability to be completely with the people you're physically with (since you're texting or chatting with someone somewhere else, using your mobile phone).

Does all this electronic stuff help or hinder real-life relationships? Do people friend strangers online too easily? Is that young whippersnapper right to claim ownership of Facebook for young people? Leave a comment.

Thanks -- Joe

A slew of "join my network" requests hit my e-mail box this week. It prompted a personal OMIGAWD moment, when I realized that people had actually viewed my many online profiles. I had to ask myself: What do my AIMPage, Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn pages say about me?"

Since my work involves online communities and social networks, I joined all of the major social networking sites to learn about them. Because playing in my social networks is a bit like taking a bus driver's holiday, my profiles and networks suffer from deferred maintenance.

Social networks require that their members create, maintain, and facilitate connections. For those too busy or introverted like me, social networking can be... well... work. Hard work.

Still, whether we like it or not, our public profiles reflect on our professional lives. I decided to take an "objective" look at my own and evaluate my online self. It wasn't pretty. I found consistent themes that ran through my social networking attempts -- a virtual list of mortal sins for people who run communities:

* Lack of quality content
* Absence of engaging widgets
* A failure to respond to comments or requests in a timely manner
* A general lack of attention to my online presence

The worst part, for me, is that others (even those who know me well) might get the wrong impressions about my professionalism or dedication to my 'craft.' The state of my LinkedIn profile makes it look as though I don't care about my resume, professional connections or future employment potential.

* Note to everyone who has asked for a job recommendation: I'm so sorry, but I just saw your requests. Yes, even the one from last January. Recommendations coming soon. If you're in a hurry, please Instant Message or e-mail me.

* Note to anyone who would like to give me a job recommendation: Please feel free. I'll never ask because I'm afraid I'll make you uncomfortable and/or that you will say no.

* Note to anyone who has not been asked to join my network: I really want you to join, but I won't ask because I'm just afraid you won't; but, feel free to ask me to join yours. I join everything.

This exercise led me to think: if I didn't work here, would I have joined any of these networks? How should we balance work-related social networking with personal social networks? Can one be a social networking professional without participating fully in virtual networks? How do the most effective among us handle all this? Am I the only one who worries about this? Am I so busy answering all these questions I can't find time to participate. Should my efforts to downsize my off-line life extend to my online life was well?

What condition are your online profiles in? Take a look and let me know. Are you happy with them?

This is an interesting concept that I saw on Metroblogging DC-- while you may have thought that the flash mob fad died a year or two ago, here's a new take on the concept -- at picnicmob.org, you answer a 30-question survey, and at some undetermined point in the near future in Boston, Chicago, DC, NYC and San Francisco, there's going to be a big picnic (goal: 1,000 people or more), grouping people in zones based on their survey answers (the examples include "The land of children," "Petland," "Artist Alley" and "Frisbee Land.")

It's kind of a block party, or meetup group, or instant family reunion, writ large.

As long as there have been online communities, there have been real-world meetups to try to connect those people who participate, so while we're looking at a longer lead time, it is still a "flash mob" in the sense that you're connecting people who haven't met before.

Another potentially interesting dynamic is seeing how people move from group-to-group, after presumably seeing who they've been first matched up with.

I have no idea if this is going to happen, but since I'm in the DC metropolitan area, I filled out my survey and will see what happens. (You can see the Picnicmob organizer's blog for more info.)

Darn, I thought the start time of the CNN/YouTube Democratic Debate was... something other than 7PM ET. So I jumped in about halfway through.

Oh well, there's always the rerun, and I can just go with Wonkette's liveblogging for a recap.

Do I think that anything revolutionary will come out of this? Not particularly -- responding to a canned question is still easier than trying to go back and forth with a live person (though I guess they brought in a few questioners in the audience).

Plus, the videos have all been cherry-picked (You can see all the submissions here -- can you imagine what kind of trainwreck it would have been if they went with user-voting to choose the questions? The mind reels) and they seem pretty straightforward.

This despite the fact that, as News Bloggers' Ben Greenman notes, CNN had been playing up the more, um, "interesting" submitters in its pre-debate promos, which raises the question -- has this user-generated content circus been anything more than a big exercise in stunt casting? Hard to say.

8:26pm: Strike that: Oh my god, they have a talking snowman asking about global warming. OK, fine, between that and the guy with the thick regional accent, we see that user-submitted questions are good for a little comic relief. Score one for democracy.

8:46pm: A singing question about taxes. That's it, I'm outta here.

Anyway, that's about as political as I get here.