Gather 'round young 'uns, and I'll tell you a story. It's about the time before everyone was on Facebook, about the time when you had to have a .edu e-mail address to get in. Your nerdy storyteller was a budding Internet researcher at the time and he happened to be a grad student, so he signed up for the grand experiment never thinking much about it. He languished with less than a dozen friends for more nearly two years. But then, a funny thing started to happen. People he hadn't seen or heard from in years started "poking" him. Seemed like they wanted to be his "friends" again, and he gladly accepted. Before too long again, he was the Bell of the Ball, and he lived happily ever after.

Yes, that was supposed to sound like a fairy tale, but strangely enough, it's all mostly true (except for the "Bell of the Ball" part). I started writing this fairy tale because my wife recently challenged me to step back and take an objective look at the social networking phenomenon. She basically called the site a passing fad, akin to Ugg boots and Tivo. As much as I want to disagree with her, my own history with the site suggests as much. I didn't really become a Facebook power user (or colossal time waster) until everyone else started joining.

Applying what I know about communication theory and even the results of a Facebook survey I helped another doctoral student administer on campus, that's probably the way it should be. You could almost think of Facebook like the early telephone. A phone was pretty useless if you were on the only one on the block to have one, but become exponentially more useful as larger and larger groups of people started installing them in their homes. In fact, our study suggested that Facebook forges such powerful connections between online friends that people rate news stories sent by their friends more credible than those sent by news organizations.

My Facebook attention waxes and wanes. Some days I struggle for an hour to come up with the perfect status update while on others, I hardly care what happened. I still love finding old friends on the site, but my definition of friend has definitely become looser and looser the more time I spend there. Honestly, I vacillate between whether Facebook is a powerful tool for social cohesion and relationship building or, like my wife, whether it's simply a fad as transitory as the Pet Rock. (I really hope Tivo last a long, long time, or at least until I can afford one.)

In the end, I think I realize what Facebook really is. It's simply a tool, just like a shovel. It really all depends on how people decide to use it. If the best Facebook applications we can come up with are Vampire hunting games and hucking Legos and In and Out Burgers at each other, then I think Facebook will go the way of the Rubik's Cube. But if can find useful ways to make the tenuous connections we make online have real world implications, then I think Facebook will not only survive, but it can become a communications tool more powerful than the newspaper or telephone. That's why I decided to write about it here, on my "professional" blog. It's up to those of us researching, designing and evangelizing the future of media to step back and analyze this funny tool we have in Facebook and decide how to most effectively use it.

Many of my friends are already on the cutting edge, to some degree. I like the instant status updates I get through Twitter. I follow a lot of the links people post to keep on top of the news (Through Facebook, I learned about the latest controversial episode of Big Love, and I even joined the group.) I can even sometimes get 3 out of 5 on the New York Times news quiz.

But we can't stop there. We could all use a challenge to step away from the screen for a minute to try to figure out how we can dig better holes with Facebook. I'm sure Mark Zuckerberg won't mind.

I've had a string of bad luck lately with computers, so much so that I want to shout from the housetops. My beloved Macbook of three years died again and needs its second new logic board, so I've gave up on it. I bought an HP from Circuit City at a discounted rate, but when I got it home, the hard drive was fried, and getting HP customer service to fix it was a nightmare.

But I'm too scared to complain. In researching libel cases for the Principles of American Journalism class I teach at the University of Missouri, I found this case, and it's a doozy. Zebulon Brodie, the owner of a Dunkin' Donuts near Baltimore is suing Independent Newspapers, the company behind a local discussion board site, because three anonymous posters made disparaging remarks about his store. The company must reveal the names so his libel case can proceed.

I know the law. I shouldn't be scared. If my complaints are the truth, I have nothing to fear. But I'm baffled why this case is even making the court rounds. Brodie's case has no merit, but it looks to me like the judges are too concerned about the impact of the big bad Internet to see the forest for the trees.

In its ruling, released yesterday, the Maryland Court of Appeals supported at least the qualified right to speak anonymously on the Internet. Sam Bayard, assistant director of the Citizen Media Law Project at Harvard Law School, told the Washington Post that the decision places the burden of proof squarely on the plaintiff.

"It seems to be pretty much following a recent trend that we've been seeing -- that there is at least a qualified right to speak anonymously on the Internet," Bayard said. "Courts are going to require the plaintiff or others seeking identities to make a heightened showing that they have a valid cause of action."

The Maryland court also issued a strict five-step process on what plaintiffs must prove to obtain the names behind anonymous posts. These guidelines force the defamed to prove actual damages, which Brodie would have a hard time doing in this case.

Here's the first alleged libelous post by CorsiaRiver:

"I wouldn't go to that Dunkin' Donuts of Brodie's anyway ... have you taken a close look at it lately? One of the most dirty and unsanitary-looking food-service places I have seen."

To me, that's a statement that should be decided on its merits. First, is it true? Second, does it clearly identify someone? Last, does it cause any real damage?

And that's why I have a bit of a problem with this case and the rulings. I know I should be glad that one of this nation's high courts is recognizing the right to post anonymously but within limits online. The guidelines the Maryland court offers are succinct and effective. But I have to wonder why do we even care this took place on the Internet? What makes the Internet so different that we have to extend the First Amendment to it, as this Post story so boldy claims in the subhead?

Yes, the founding fathers probably couldn't predict the rise of the Internet, but they didn't have to. They made the First Amendment so broad that they didn't have to. The rights it affords pertain to all publishing and all forms of speech, whether verbal, print or electronic. What I really wish is the court would have decided this case on its merits and not created new extensions of old rules online. I also don't ever remember where the criteria for free expression forced you to put your name on it.

Let's embrace the Internet for what people like Bayard know it can be.

"There's a long tradition in U.S. history of at least anonymous political speech, and certainly when you contemplate the Internet and the new opportunities it offers, this is the way a lot of speech happens," he said.

So in the spirit of starting the discussion, I am going to rail against Apple and HP after all. Apple uses superior and innovative marketing to convince us its products really aren't the defective pieces of junk, and HP hides behind a telephone system designed to discourage its customers from even complaining at all. There, I said it. I feel better. Let the lawsuits begin. I'm pretty sure I have the law on my side.

I've been kind of reeling in dissertation depression lately, so my apologies for not updating more frequently. I'm in the weird stage where I'm dreading all the work I need to do so much that I'm not accomplishing anything. It sounds bad, but that leads to the "Oh-crap!-I-have-to-get-this-done-no-matter-what!" stage where I usually do my best work. Yeah, it's screwed up process, but it works for me.
Anyway, I don't know why I'm apologizing because it's not like I have a huge following here. I'm not throwing a pity party. It is what it is, but it's made me question why I'm even blogging at all. Combine that with the studies I'm searching through for my dissertation, and I feel sometimes like I'm trying to catch lightning in a bottle. Can I really boil down the reasons why someone posts on a blog or submits a story to CNN's iReport in one mathematical model? Can I even add insight into something that just seems to happen on its own? Even if I do find something, what's the point? Can you really do anything to foster the Stephenie Meyers of the world?
Yes, I did call upon the name of the Twilight goddess because I think she's a good example of what I'm researching. My wife told me she just read an interview with the stay-at-home mom in which she described her early writing process. She tells Vogue she often wrote after her kids went to bed and sometimes with a child on her lap. She never showed her writing to anyone - not even her husband - beyond one of of her sisters, who finally convinced her to send it to publishers. A $750,000 book deal later and the rest is history of course. But while I'm sure she doesn't mind the dump truck full of money she now receives, it doesn't seem like that was her ultimate goal.

"I had always told myself stories my whole life and assumed that everyone does," Meyer says.

She turned to writing because it allowed her to get those stories out of her head.

"I used to paint, and I won a few watercolor contests, but I could never get it to look exactly like it did in my head. But with writing, I discovered I could get it to look exactly like it did in my head."

In other words, she's saying she writes because it's a need. She doesn't write for reward or praise or admiration. She writes because there is value in the activity itself.
George Orwell, the author of 1984 and Animal Farm, puts it a bit differently, but I think he agrees.

All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.

If Orwell is right and even the writer him or herself can't understand the demon that compels them, why am I even trying? If I can't even understand my own motivations (or lack of motivation, most of the time) how can I attempt to find it in others? Is contributing to an online news site such an individual act that it can be understood only in terms of the person? Or can news organizations actually do something that will make their readers more likely to contribute?
I put a lot of faith in that last question because I truly believe they can, and I think they need to. The capabilities of the Internet make connecting with audiences easier than ever, and the mission of journalism has always been to bring people together. News organizations lost sight of this somewhere, and it has taken the Internet and dwindling revenues to pull them back.
The key to making those connections and encouraging contributions lies within the intrinsic motivations for writing Meyer and Orwell uphold. The media need to do a better job at making what they have to offer valuable in itself. Information cannot be valuable only because of what you can do with it or what you can talk about with others.
Personally, I need to do a better job writing to satisfy my own personal demons, one of which will always be journalism. No matter how many times they cover the Octo-Mom or Oscar fashions, I believe in the democratic potential of the news media. I believe a good story can make a difference. I know the media won't always be perfect, and that's why they need people like me to remind them once in a while.

In the last couple of weeks, I've gained a greater understanding of the imposing challenge that faces the news media as they adapt to the online landscape. No, I didn't complete a vast research project or pull a respected group of professionals into my classes remotely. No, I started teaching the large introductory journalism course at the University of Missouri once again, and I've found myself scrambling to get as many of the 230 students involved as possible. And frankly, like the media, I'm throwing a bunch of stuff at the wall to see what sticks.

At a university, especially when you are teaching a big class of millenials, it's no longer enough just to talk. A fancy Powerpoint isn't enough either. Before each lecture, I find myself scouring the Internet for as many examples as I can hoping to find something that will make concepts such as truth, verification and journalism real. I'm also hoping to be entertaining enough to keep the students off their Facebook pages. I like using short video and audio clips, even if I have to download them from YouTube, because it breaks up the monotony of my voice and it puts the fancy project hanging from the ceiling to good use, even if the videos are sometimes too dark. But I also know how I learn, and I'll remember a film clip more than a collection of static slides, especially if I understand how the clip relates to the big picture.

Fancy videos aren't enough. What I teach, and really what I'm supposed to teach, isn't black and white. The criteria for news doesn't stop at conflict, proximity, prominence, timeliness, impact and novelty. If I learned anything as a reporter and editor, it's that each individual journalist has to come up with his or her own definition of news and be able to justify it to an audience.

To help students reason through dilemmas such as these, I try to encourage as much discussion as possible. I try to ask questions and wait through the awkward silences until someone answers. But I know that not everyone will speak in class, and I know that technology can really help. So I feel like I'm constantly directing students to our class web site to discuss on our message boards. This semester, I followed a colleague's lead and created a Twitter account for the class. So far, I think this has been wildly successful. More than 60 % of the class has signed up to follow the feed and I get scores of great responses every class period.

My dilemma now is what do I do with all these responses. My poor TAs have already had to endure my attempts at involving them as screeners twice with no advance warning or preparation.

These efforts are merely scratching the surface of how technology can help me teach. I could create narrated video slideshows and upload them to iTunes for students to download. I could add require them to visit a list of Web sites each week instead of reading from a textbook. I could even use the dreaded clickers for instant opinion polls.

Before I get too out of control and even as I try to manage what I'm already doing, I have to ask myself why I'm doing it. Am I using some of these things just because I can? Or do I have an educational goal in mind, as Shakespeare would say, "a method to my madness"?

News organizations should ask themselves the same questions as they explore the possibilities of news in the 21st century. I chuckle to myself when I hear that newspapers are hiring more videographers than reporters because I wonder if anyone in the newsroom will even know what to do with their videos. Specifically, I think of the Roanoke Times Web site, which, at one time, featured a daily newscast from the Web team. In academia, we loved it because it was innovative if a bit amateurish, but it barely lasted a year. Now the paper has turned its video over to the tried and true talking heads, that aren't nearly as interesting as the plucky interns were.

I wish I had a good answer for both teachers and news professionals, but I don't. That's kind of my point in writing this. But I can only hope that through my experimentation, I can come up with some possibilities. Twitter definitely shows promise because it's so easy to comment with your cell phone.

On the news side, I hope that organizations will continue to experiment as well and be willing to share their triumphs and failures with the rest of us.

I'm dealing with a serious problem, and I hope you can help. I call it techno-envy, and it's a debilitating condition. You see, when I'm on a flight to Oklahoma and the guy next to me whips out his iPhone and tells me all he uses it for is text messaging, I get a little nutty. When friends buy $1,500 laptops just to sit on their desk at home, I want to steal things. I know with that technology at my fingertips, I could do so much more. It's really something I know I need to get over, and last week I learned why. At a conference where some of the brightest technological minds collaborated to design the future of news, I realized it's pointless to use technology just because you can. The best technology is the one that people will decided to use on their own and adapt to their own purposes.

Last week, I was lucky to participate in the Reynolds Journalism Institute Collaboratory Talkfest. News professionals and academics from across the country converged on Columbia, Mo. to discuss the future of news. We had an engaging and productive encounter. I moderated sessions on using the Internet to build communities, and I was continually impressed with the ideas participants came up with. I added a couple more blogs to the blog roll based on people I met and people whose ideas I liked including Amy Gahran, Jane Stevens, Brian Boyer, and Matt Thompson.

I even had the opportunity as I explained on the side and through my Facebook status to liveblog about the experience. That was the first time I have ever done something like that, and I can't say I enjoyed it. Sometimes, I felt so focused on adding insightful commentary to the liveblog that I missed out on what was really being said. I don't think I was alone. There were more open laptops in our conference room than at a Circuit City closeout sale, and a couple of people wondered whether anyone was really listening.

In all honesty, I'm sure people were. Most are probably a lot more capable of multi-tasking than I am becasue I'm constantly distracted by my e-mail and ESPN. (I've checked my e-mail three times since I started writing). But the conference made me question one big assumption I have about the future of news. I'm guilty in assuming that if you put powerful technology in people's hands, they'll use it and use it for good.

The truth is that people will use technolgy they find useful and they'll use it however they want. Engineers understand that their products are often used in tons of ways they never intended, and they don't care as long as their products are being used. Media theorist Everett Rogers even developed a theory to explain why some products are adopted while others are not, that says much the same thing. In other words, I should know better.

But it's as easy to get caught up in the potential of technology as it is to get distracted by e-mail. If we are serious about helping the news industry survive the transition and thrive in the future the Internet holds, we need to help professionals understand not just what technology offers, but how people will really use it.

For example, I study I have wanted to undertake for a long time would examine the feasibility of using the iPod as a classroom tool. Professors have long considered uploading their lectures as podcasts and asking students to subscribe. Some schools have even purchased iPods for their students with this purpose in mind. My hypothesis, however, and this needs testing of course, is this wouldn't work. Even though the potential exists to use an iPod this way, it's not how people want to use them.

I'm not saying we should never encourage people to push the limits of technology and find new ways to use products they already have. We just can't think of them as failures or technology wasters for not capitalizing on every feature. Personally, I should be happy people find the iPhone so easy to text with. I should understand that a laptop on a desk fulfills a purpose that a cheaper desktop computer could not. In the end, I should find ways to reach out to people to find the ways they want to use technology rather than cram the uses I find down their throats.

This is especially true of the news business that for far too long, failed to listen to its audiences. The transition will not be made by creating powerful new technology. Instead it will occur once we understand what technologies people actually want and will use to get their news. That's why I think there is still room for printed newspapers sometimes, especially if all I use my iPhone for is texting.