You could argue that each of the last few years have been the tipping point for digital and social media in terms of its acceptance into mainstream culture, but I think you’d have a tough job proving that any was more important than 2009.

It was the year Twitter made it really, really big; the year Facebook made it even bigger; the year Rupert Murdoch said ‘no more’ to free content and the year Spotify proved everyone wrong and made music free and the labels happy.

Iran, Jan Moir, Darren Bent, Eurostar, Ashton Kutcher and the NHS are all words that have taken on a different meaning to many people after their popularity on Twitter catapulted both them and the short-messaging service to the lead items on TV news and above the fold on newspaper websites.

This was the year that celebrities, companies, politicians and the media smashed the ivory towers they had spent years building, coming down to speak to us lowly mortals wherever we may be. And en masse. This was the year that social media stopped just preaching to the converted and started to convert the non-believers.

I started the year as a huge believer in the power of social media, but 2009 was also the year I stopped believing it can foster actual tangible change. As the Telegraph’s Head of Technology, Shane Richmond, recently said about the power of internet campaigning, ‘all this revolution seems to have achieved is a change in the Christmas number one and the return of the Wispa bar.’ And given the amount of time we’ve been spending on social networking sites, this is a pretty poor return.

Ah, but this was the year of the Iranian revolution, where some Twitter users changed their avatars to green and switched their locations to Tehran to show solidarity with the protestors and frustrate the Iranian government forces. But as Evgeny Morozov points out, while the Iranian protestors used Twitter to organise mass-protests, their tool of choice was used by the government to track, arrest and question them. All Twitter did was highlight that a new weapon only gives you the advantage if the person you’re fighting can’t use it too. If not, it’s just a stalemate. This was slacktivism at its laziest: middle class westerners getting all the feelgood pleasure of intervention without actually doing anything. Given how limited internet access is in Iran – as few as a third of Iranians have internet access – Twitter played no more of a role in the revolution than people who listened to Band Aid on the radio did in eradicating third-world debt and famine in Africa. It just felt like we made a difference because we had our head in the same barrel as a lot of other people who were shouting the same slogans at the same time.

As with the Twitter mob outrage that frothed up over Jan Moir and her repulsively homophobic opinion piece on Stephen Gately’s death, it made little difference, with no one properly apologising and no heads rolling. In fact, the Daily Mail showcased a masterful tactic in the battle against social media anger: do nothing. And it worked. Twitter was shown up to be a toothless tiger whose bark was worse than its non-existent bite. Who cares if 12 angry bloggers hate the Mail? Not to mention the fact they got all those extra visits thanks to all the links.

Add to that the fact that social networks may actually make people feel more lonely, it does make it difficult to be the evangelist I once was.

This is not a call to apathy or to down tools and give up. But if we don’t face up to a tool’s limitations then we’ll never actually solve the problem.

2010 is going to be, as many have said, the year that early adopters are going to have to show that this social media stuff actually works. And that’s a good thing. We’ve been playing with the internet for 15 years since Craigslist and are only just starting to face up to the grim reality that, while it is a beautiful place to be, it isn’t an Eden that has room for all media organisations. Better we sort these issues out with social media now before we’ve got 15 years of bad habits to undo.

Something happened today that sparked minor alarm, and major conversation.

One of Stephen Fry’s followers, of which there are very nearly 1,000,0000, casually remarked that sometimes his tweets could be a bit boring.

Stephen Fry replied: “whereas yours are so fascinating I can barely contain my fluids.”

The follower, @brumplum, replied, rather sweetly: “@stephenfry I shall have to put more effort into fluid-extraction! *blushes at the thought of S.F. reading my wibbles*”

Shortly followed by: “My life is complete, @stephenfry has @ replied me, rapidly followed by blocking me. My previous comment clearly hit him hard. Sorry.”

Stephen Fry replied with: “@brumplum You’ve convinced me. I’m obviously not good enough. I retire from Twitter henceforward. Bye everyone.”

Followed by “Think I may have to give up on Twitter. Too much aggression and unkindness around. Pity. Well, it’s been fun.”

To those non-community managers following Stephen Fry, it may have been a fairly unique car crash to watch but for those in the online community field who regularly ‘manage’, ‘curate’, ‘nurture’ or whatever else you want to call it, it was really nothing new.

It was, I believe, something I have often called, ‘the flounce’.

The flounce is something that happens fairly regularly in traditional message board communities. To be considered a true flounce it tends to tick the following boxes:

• It is being carried out publicly (i.e. not through private messaging or offline communications)
• It is being carried out by an active community member, who tends to have a large following and a fairly lengthy history of membership – it carries no weight otherwise, no-one would notice
• It revolves around hurt, personal feelings, rather than big picture disagreements around, say, party politics
• It tends to start with a disagreement between a very small number of people, often just two
• The popular member (or sometimes a clique of members) declares they are leaving the community
• A far larger group than was originally involved wades in, pleads with the flouncer or flouncers to change their mind(s), lists the reasons why a) they shouldn’t go and b) they’re fantastic
• The flouncer decides to stay. Or at least says they’ll think about it:

Stephen Fry: “Well maybe I’ll see how I feel in a few days. Very low and depressed at the moment and any drop of meanness makes it so much worse. Sorry.”

When I worked on a large women’s community it was a near constant occurrence. It happened on boards based around all topics, not just the typical flashpoints of parenting, and very rarely did anyone leave. At least for long.

It’s easy to get used to rolling your eyes, using calming strategies, and flashing the red cards when it all gets too much.

It’s easy to see the flouncing as an act in itself. It’s easy to see the flouncer as, well, just that. A flouncer. It’s just a hissy fit, it’s just a flounce.

But an act is rarely independent, it is rarely caused by only one thing.

We don’t act in a simple, binary way. A to B therefore C isn’t really how humans behave. We don’t always act chronologically (I may do something right now, based on a conversation three days ago, in between I’ve done all sorts of other things).

In short, there is often a huge backstory behind every little piece of dialogue.

Seeing someone so intelligent, so well-educated, so nuanced (you could hardly call Fry a one-trick pony), at the age of 52, execute a perfect flounce reminds us that, actually, there can be very serious reasons behind it.

Stephen Fry, as swathes of followers rushed to point out to poor @brumplum, is bipolar. In 1995, while performing in the West End with Rik Mayall, he suffered an infamous nervous breakdown. He disappeared for days leaving a comedy community bracing itself for news of suicide.

It’s fair to say that we can assume nobody within Stephen’s community at the time, would have rolled their eyes. It’s fair to say that we can guess no-one would have termed it something as flippant as a ‘flounce’.

Fast forward to 2009, and yes, as a community manager, I recognise that the events of today had all the hallmarks of a very common community occurrence. Because of Fry’s notoriety, for once, witnesses to it knew of the backstory. They knew that this could be the actions of a deeply unhappy person, with a history of mental illness.

It’s important that all of us in a position of trust and responsibility within any community, but especially one of words, remembers that flounces are very rarely flippant.

By @hollyseddon

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A few weeks ago my boss asked me to start sending out an email with links to the week’s biggest tech stories to encourage those who aren’t so geeky to keep up-to-date with industry news. Thought I may as well post in here too. It’s pretty mainstream tech stuff, but as a journalist I’ve got pretty handy at cutting and pasting so thought I may as well share here too…

Here’s the five tech stories no nerd should be without from the last week.

Sun launches multiplayer quizzes
So what? Well firstly, it’s making quizzes social (1pt in buzzword bingo) and secondly it’s another trial of paid-for-content. This is using micropayments, although that term traditionally meant fractions of a pound (0.14p) and this is actually small payments (15p).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/05/sun-web-multiplayer-quiz

Times launches Times +
So what? So this is Murdoch playing with subscription models and paywalls. This isn’t a world first and isn’t around content. It’s more like an members’ club where people can get exclusive deals and tickets. Leveraging Times’ reputation as a premium content provider it’s more wine deals and theatre tickets than gig tickets. And all for £50 a year.
http://www.timesplus.co.uk/

Amazon to launch Kindle in UK
So what? They’ve finally managed to sort out a way around Europe’s arcane copyright laws, so you’ll be able to buy digital books here and read them on the beach in Spain. Also touted as the 169th way to save newspapers this year. Number 170 is printing them on things people actually want, like sandwiches.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/oct/07/amazon-ebooks

Foursquare hits the UK
So what? If you use Twitter and follow Americans you’ll have seen people declaring themselves as ‘Mayor of XXXXX’. The location-based, social, real-time app not only uses a huge four buzzwords when being described, but is actually quite addictive. Come and add me if you decide to play. I’m currently Mayor of Virgin Media – no joke.
http://foursquare.com/user/jamesseddon

Google defending book deal
So what? So Google has agreed a £125m deal with American publishers so it can digitise millions of out-of-print books and offer them for free online. More data = better targeted ads = more money for Google.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/oct/09/google-books-brin

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