Cathy Brooks is a journalist, creative media strategist, and host of the Social Media Hour live podcast. She blogs at Other Than That, which is also the name of her consulting firm, and she has worked for companies like Tech TV (now G4) and Seesmic. In last night’s The Social Nerdia Show! I spoke with her about media, journalism, newspapers, technology, business, and much more. Cathy is not only highly entertaining, she is also incredibly insightful and thought-provoking.

Listen to the entire conversation with Cathy on the Flash player below. You can also subscribe to us on iTunes, stream from mobiles on Stitcher, and listen to upcoming shows LIVE on blogtalkradio.

Cathy’s tagline for her podcast is ‘it’s not about the tools, it’s about what you do with them,’ and it very well reflects her views on technology. She has much appreciation and enthusiasm for “the way that technology is used or not, successfully or not, and the impact that has on the way we buy things, share information, communicate with each other, and just evolve as carbon based life forms.”

The Two Medias

The fact that Cathy has much experience in traditional media led me to ask her about the now very widely use ’social media’ term. She responded that there are two kinds of media, “media with a capital M and media with a lower case m.” The first one is ‘the media,’ and it includes outlets from large organizations like News Corporation and The New York Times Company, as well as blogs like The Huffington Post and Tech Crunch. “Lower case m (media) are the platforms, the technology, the things we use, the social networks, the real-time stream things like Twitter, Blogtalkradio, Facebook, YouTube, and the list goes on and on,” she explained.

While some would argue that the concept of media is not much more than a channel or a means to deliver some form of content, Cathy think that media has always been social. “Social media to me is a rather redundant term as opposed to an oxymoron like jumbo shrimp. Media is by its nature a social thing and it has become more so in its interactivity, crowdsourced nature, and user generated contributions,” she told me.

The Case for Journalism

There has been much talk about the death of the newspaper and the traditional media organization in the last few years, but Cathy thinks this has been “greatly exaggerated.” She continued to say that while “some of these types of media outlets, some of the mediums, may either die or change greatly, the need for journalism has never been more important.” (more…)

Kara Andrade from HablaHonduras and I have a panel up for consideration for the 2010 SXSW Interactive Festival and we’d appreciate it so much if you guys voted for us and commented here on SXSW’s PanelPicker.

Labor Day is the last day to vote!

You can also help us spread the word by sharing this link http://bit.ly/votesxsw with everyone you know.

The title of the panel is “Here Come All the Latino Bloggers” and we intend to boldy go where few Latinos have been expected to go before. You might have noticed the lack of latino representation at everybody’s favorite interactive event in Austin, TX, but I am proud to announce that the Latino blogger, columnist, and citizen journalist has finally arrived.

Our panel will be about what is happening online and offline in Latin America, including Streisand effects, citizen journalism, jounalism 2.0, social injustice, and the digital divide.

The panel will also let you find out out more about the bloggers that are leaving a mark in the US and worldwide in the name of Latin America when it comes to politics, social justice, marketing, music, and technology.

By the way, here are some of the questions we hope to answer with out panel:

(more…)

These are scary times for old media. The Internet has forced them to change or die or both. The media decline is probably most obvious in newspapers. The New York Times is not yet “a print newsletter for the elite and the elderly,” as the EPIC 2014 video put it in 2004, but it is definitely not what it used to be. The Wall Street Journal’s gloomy financial results are not getting any better. You don’t have to be a finance guru to know that the rest of the newspapers are also struggling.

Similarly, magazines are barely making it. Book sales are great, but only if you are JK Rowling. Hollywood movies are downloadable, sometimes even reviewed, before they are released. Marketers and consumers continuously wonder if TV is overpriced. Record labels and the music industry are running out of dumb ideas and Radiohead’s good ideas make their dumb ideas seem even dumber. And AM/FM radio… well, I can’t remember the last time I listened to it, but I’ve heard several podcasts and Pandora stations in the last few days.

And while MySpace continues to slide downhill from social web darling to shady poster child for uncoolness, its less than proud papa News Corp. is trying to change the way we consume news by announcing that it will charge for news content. Yes, charging, as in asking you to pay money for it.

Last time I checked, the news were free. The news are available to all and shared via links. The clicks on those links are what keeps advertisers paying for ads and what should make them pay much more in the future.

Everyone knows that The Wall Street Journal is one of the best newspapers in the world and that its writers are exceptional. I subscribed to it once (several years ago) and then canceled shortly after because I simply didn’t know what to do with such a huge pile of unread paper. (more…)

Kara Andrade is the lead project coordinator of HablaHonduras, a web site that allows people in Honduras to voice their thoughts via the web, SMS, email, and Twitter. But HablaHonduras is not just a lot of noise about a small country in Central America.

Consisting of 80% original content and 20% aggregated content, and with almost a month of being in existence, the site has become both a platform and a destination for what’s happening in Honduras amidst confusing and historical times. HablaHonduras is about citizen journalism today and what it could become.

After immigrating as a child from Guatemala with her mother, Kara grew up in the United States and lived in over 20 states. From a young age she thrived on challenges and became fascinated with innovation. “People misunderstand innovation.. innovation is like ‘astucia’, which literally translates to astuteness.. thinking in a way that is so on the spot with the needs that you have, that you find the angle, you find the right answer,” Kara told me.

Kara has done a lot of work with public health, her “first career” and still one of her many passions, but “it was so difficult to create change.” While she still believes that public health can be very powerful, Kara is today a journalist and multimedia reporter who seeks for ways to make a difference.

Kara’s desire to create change might be her primary reason for getting involved with unique projects like HablaHonduras. (more…)

Cali Lewis is the producer, writer and host of GeekBrief.TV, a video podcast about tech, consumer electronics, and web 2.0. An influential person in the tech community, Cali is also quite down to earth and recently did an awesome job as an organizer of WordCamp Dallas 2009, where I was able to ask her some questions.

In the two videos below, you’ll learn about Cali’s real (but not very googleable) name, her geeky roots, and her transition from self-storage manager to full-time video podcaster.

Cali also told me about having friends not “fans” (with one exception), the exciting future of AR and 4G networks, and the threat that bloggers pose to journalists. Cali is aware that “the internet is not going to wipe out TV, just like TV didn’t wipe out the radio, and the radio didn’t wipe out the newspaper“, but it’s clear that online productions of high quality like GeekBrief.TV are  transforming the way we watch and think of content on the web.

(more…)

Jennifer Leggio is the director of strategic communications for Fortinet, as well as a regular blogger on ZDNet and co-host of the Quick-n-Dirty show on blogtalkradio. Having spent more than 15 years in the communications industry, she has a good grasp on technology, network security, and digital media.

Jennifer also played an accidental role in the naming of this web site (a typo she wrote basically helped inspire the name “Social Nerdia“). Please follow Jennifer aka Mediaphyter on Twitter and make sure to pay attention to any thought-provoking typos.

1. How do you balance your life while working at Fortinet, blogging for ZDNet, and contributing to other projects?

It’s tough. I sacrifice a lot of my personal life. While Fortinet is flexible and understanding of my “double life,” my job there is my first and foremost priority, and it has both its demands and rewards. I need to write at least two to three times per week for ZDNet and I have pretty high standards for what I post on the blog. I don’t like to do little blurbs that just riff on other people’s research. I like to do my own research. It’s challenging but worth it. I just need to find a way to work a little more “me” time into the equation and I’ll be satisfied.

2. You write about “social business”. Do you think there’s a place for every company (products/services, B2C/B2B, etc.) in the social web?

Every company? That might be a stretch. (more…)