Here’s the quick background: TechCrunch obtained multiple documents from an alleged hacker who had broken into Twitter employee’s email accounts, Google Documents (There’s a reason it’s not compliant, but that’s a different issue) and other documents and information. TechCrunch verified w/Twitter and its lawyers the accuracy of the documents and even interviewed them. Then they published some of the documents. They were even kind enough to redact personal information.

Journalism 101

From the days of muckraking and yellow journalism, obtained documents have been one of the best sources of great information for reporters. The methods and tactics used to acquire these documents range from the legal (Washington Public Records Act, Federal Freedom of Information Act) to the potentially unethical.

But here’s an important step that separates journalist from sensationalist: The journalist attempts to verify the information before publishing. The Sensationalist does not.

As a holder of an actual, real-life journalism degree, I sat through hours of press law and have filled out my fair share of information requests. I have also obtained information through anonymous sources or obtained information in other ways. And I used those documents. But after verifying on my own.

The right to publish

Now, the debate over whether or not TechCrunch should have published or not is broken into two parts:

• Is the information newsworthy?
• Is the information “off limits?”

The newsworthiness discussion is for another day. I am focused on the ethics involved in publishing the documents. TechCrunch absolutely acted within the boundaries of accepted journalistic ethics in publishing those documents. If it had simply published the entire .zip file without making an attempt to check facts or redact personal information, it would have been very out of line.

Instead, it looked for the information it deemed “newsworthy” and ran with it. To recap, it verified the information with Twitter, attempted to elicit on-the-record comment from Twitter and published the information that was applicable to the story it accompanied. TechCrunch even solicited comment from third-party companies named in the documents.

One could also make the argument that Ev and Biz and some of the Twitter team are “Limited Purpose Public Figures.” This means that some of their information is subject to federal and state open records laws and that their expectations of privacy are a bit different than the average citizen.

In this case, the combination of a good journalist and a good lawyer are difficult to beat.

Should they have published

Well, in my opinion yes and no. If TechCrunch wants to use this as a standard for applying journalistic ethics to its reporting (coverage?), then great. But the fact is that TechCrunch is a blog. Its writers express opinion and insert themselves into the stories they are writing. Independant sources are a rarity, as is interviews with the subjects they’re writing about.

I’ve written about the difference between blogger and journalist before, and I think it is completely applicable here. And this gets right to the heart of the debate. If the New York Times had published those documents, would we have even flinched?

I’m sure my opinion is different than some, so tell me what you think.

Twitter relations is similar to blogger relations, but eliminates the threshold of authority that comes with a blog. Brands, PR companies and marketing teams are beginning to provide limited access to everyday tweeters. Now, these aren’t your ordinary tweeters, these are people with at least 1,000 followers and who are generally quite vocal.

As you’ll see, I apparently fit this profile… But what I’m seeing is PR and marketing toeing the line between sponsored posts and actual brand evangelism.

Will tweet for food

Recently in the Seattle area, I saw Pemco flying across Tweetdeck. A group of local people had been invited to the top of the Space Needle and had a catered affair where Pemco debuted a new part of its “Northwest Profiles” ad campaign.

The people present had tweeted about being there and watching the commercial and hanging out with the Pemco CMO (who had “invited” his followers to attend).

Another example is an event that Alaska Airlines is sponsoring, called the Aviation Geek Night. A scant 12 people won tickets to take a ride in the airline’s flight simulator and have some further access to the company. This is not invite only and there was no expectation of tweeting on behalf of Alaska Airlines. Disclosure: I won a pass and will be attending.

Also, another invite I’ve received is to head to a location of a high-end dining chain called El Gaucho. It is opening a new location locally and is featuring a lunch menu. They hired a company to host a Taste and Tweet and local media and a few “average Joe” twitterers got to attend (again, disclaimer: I was one of them).

Are these sponsored posts? What about the media people in attendance at these events? I think those count as sponsored tweets and the media present must either disclose their receiving of free goods or food in their tweets. As a non-member of the media (anymore), I think that what I voluntarily posted to my Twitter stream also counts. But am I under a moral or legal obligation to disclose?

How to relate to Tweeters

So, is there a right way to engage with prolific tweeters? What is more important, having one person with 100,000 followers at an event or 20 people with 1,000 followers? I think the answer is pretty clear as the 20 people are more likely to be more vocal with their posts and opinions, resulting in additional mentions.

For small brands looking to boost the mentions in the Twitter stream, having a small, semi-exclusive event is a great way to do that. The problem is the discolsure dilemma. If the “average” person on Twitter is going to act as media at an event, then they should discolse the freebies. Would it have been acceptable for me to go to the El Gaucho event and not posted anything about it?

If PR and marketing companies are OK with people coming to the event and not tweeting at all, then they should not take credit for those that do. Mentions on Twitter as part of these events should not count as media mentions.

Measuring the impact

What value do these mentions have then? The word-of-mouth marketing that occurs from these is quite valuable. The mentions the above companies received helped boost their visibility and their reach. Did the events lead to more sales? Did they lead to actual press coverage? Those are some of the key metrics to consider.

What are your thoughts on this? Should PR take credit for bringing in assorted tweeters to an invite-only event? What are your best practices for tweeter relations? How do you see this trend evolving?

The author (Laura Fitton, who is AWESOME), has an interview with the two guys that developed a service for Best Buy called Mix. Mix is an initiative to get Best Buy’s employees micro-sharing and micro-blogging. This is absurd.

We’re all a bunch of geeks. Those of us on Twitter have adopted this way of communicating as a means to fool ourselves into thinking we’re interacting with people. For “micro-sharing” to be thrust onto an army of retail workers seems like an inherently bad idea. Now, I’ll be even more self conscious when I check out, wondering what they’re going to post about the 6′8″ guy that just bought a Wii.

But I’ll Twitter that, so you’ll find out I guess.

The other issue I have with this is the productivity suck these services are. Think about this. I work in a small office. But in a given day, I will email, call, Skype, IM and maybe have a Twitter conversation with people in my company. Now, compound this by expecting me to participate in a micro-sharing thing makes me wonder when any actual “work” will get done.

Am I completely wrong?

What’s changed?

Not a whole lot. Innovation appears to be on a temporary hiatus. Yahoo is trying its best to be the belle of the ball, but is ending up only as the last-call cougar. I don’t care if it’s Googlehoo, Microhoo, Yahoogle or whatever mashup you want to call it, it’s still going to be “contextual” ads in the way of my Internet search.

I like Google not for its results, but for the fact that to search for something, I type it into my Firefox space and it gives me what I want. So, whatever happens, keep making Mozilla rich so I can keep using the quick search.

Social networking fatigue

I’m not fatigued of the act of social networking, I’m fatigued of the myriad Web sites I feel it necessary to register as /geekgiant or what have you. Here’s my proposal.

We all love Twitter (when it works). We’ve all settled on FriendFeed as a way to abandon RSS sharing. And we all seem to have a LinkedIn profile. Let’s call it a day. It’s time for the Web to be used for something useful. How about a network for managing emergency responses. Or how about a CMS that has a reality check built in for poor writers. Another idea I have is for a Customer Relationship Management that is usable by, well, everybody.

Just an idea.

Where to go

I think that what the IPO bubble was to Web 1.0, consolidation will be to Web 2.0. We’re going to see makers of widgets get absorbed into the social networks they serve. I think we’ll see some of the proprietary Web app creation tools such as Coghead or Bungee Labs dissolve and I think that some of the blogs will consolidate as well.

We’re in the birth of a new economy. The Web is the platform for innovation and I’m excited to see where we go.