For almost a decade now, Howard County and Columbia, Maryland have been blessed with a wealth of Internet connectivity. As the Internet and various social media tools have come online, our community has seen its share of early adapters. When those “best places to live” surveys are published, I usually take some time to find out what is going on digitally in the communities listed. Most often, there is not a lot to find. Columbia and Howard County have a pretty vibrant collection of bloggers, tweeters, Facebookians and otherwise Internet connected residents.
That flourishing electronic garden now seems, in some respects, to be retreating. The first news came from the Columbia Association. Last week, CA announced that they were deactivating Facebook pages and Twitter accounts. The logic behind this change has not been made clear, and CA will continue to maintain its central corporate Twitter and Facebook presence. What matters here is that through social media outreach, CA was beginning to become more connected to residents. Personally, I followed both the Columbia Neighborhood Swim League and CA_Pools Twitter accounts. Although they did not produce a lot of tweets, the communication provided was great. Through Twitter, I could follow swim meets city-wide on summer Saturday mornings. CA_Pools gave timely info about inclement weather pool closures and other events going on. In this way, there was value imparted to me, a Package Plan member. Similarly, Facebook posts from the Columbia Archives and other venues kept me up to date on events and activities throughout the city. It is my hope that CA has developed an in-house ability to convey all of this information through the corporate portal in a timely manner. However, the loss of connectivity with discreet portions of CA has been lost, and that is sad.
Over the weekend, I found the following posted at the top of the Explore Howard website:
That flourishing electronic garden now seems, in some respects, to be retreating. The first news came from the Columbia Association. Last week, CA announced that they were deactivating Facebook pages and Twitter accounts. The logic behind this change has not been made clear, and CA will continue to maintain its central corporate Twitter and Facebook presence. What matters here is that through social media outreach, CA was beginning to become more connected to residents. Personally, I followed both the Columbia Neighborhood Swim League and CA_Pools Twitter accounts. Although they did not produce a lot of tweets, the communication provided was great. Through Twitter, I could follow swim meets city-wide on summer Saturday mornings. CA_Pools gave timely info about inclement weather pool closures and other events going on. In this way, there was value imparted to me, a Package Plan member. Similarly, Facebook posts from the Columbia Archives and other venues kept me up to date on events and activities throughout the city. It is my hope that CA has developed an in-house ability to convey all of this information through the corporate portal in a timely manner. However, the loss of connectivity with discreet portions of CA has been lost, and that is sad.
Over the weekend, I found the following posted at the top of the Explore Howard website:
explorehoward.com will soon be discontinued in favor of baltimoresun.com/howard. This new Howard County section will continue to feature breaking news and events, as well as deep coverage of local neighborhoods in the county. Please bookmark the new site.
In this case, I have some sympathy here. The pull-back over at CA is somewhat of a corporate decision. Although Explore Howard and the parent company are also corporate in nature, it is clear that the news industry as a whole is on the ropes. The deactivation of Explore Howard to Baltimore Sun/Howard may just be cosmetic, but it feels like more of a loss.
I would also be remiss if I didn’t recognize a longer term trend here in the blogging world. Although many of us are still working through the hole left by the sudden and untimely departure of Dennis Lane, we have also seen other bloggers move out of the area (Sarah, Dinomom we miss you) and there are several bloggers (myself included) that have not published at the same frequency as we once did.
The social media world is still evolving and this part of the country has done a fantastic job of adapting and using these new tools. However, it seems like tide is going out on us these days. It’s time for the Howard County social media community to get up off the beach, and get back into the surf. hocoblogs@@@
I would also be remiss if I didn’t recognize a longer term trend here in the blogging world. Although many of us are still working through the hole left by the sudden and untimely departure of Dennis Lane, we have also seen other bloggers move out of the area (Sarah, Dinomom we miss you) and there are several bloggers (myself included) that have not published at the same frequency as we once did.
The social media world is still evolving and this part of the country has done a fantastic job of adapting and using these new tools. However, it seems like tide is going out on us these days. It’s time for the Howard County social media community to get up off the beach, and get back into the surf. hocoblogs@@@