Paid Content talked to NYT digital guru Jonathan Landman, who announced Preston's hiring via Twitter. They say "he denied Valleywag's speculation that Preston's role will be to clamp down on the newsroom's [Twittering]." What they meant to say was "he confirmed that she will do that":

"This isn't about policing, although that is a small function [of the social editor's role], but as only as a matter of making things consistent. It's not the main purpose at all," Landman told paidContent. "It's really just the opposite of policing. it's about helping everybody figure out how to use social media as a tool for journalists. A number of people have discovered social media a form for marketing and promotion, but it's also got explicitly journalistic uses."

In other words, watch for those Twitter guidelines soon, newsroom! [CLARIFICATION: Yes, she will clearly be doing many more things than just that. Come on.] Preston herself has gotten into the Social Media Spirit (which is socialism) by taking her own Twitter page (just started today!) off its "Private" setting, which was a little incongruous, and opening up to the world. Here, her very first public insight into bridging the gap between old and new media:

Pay her whatever she wishes.

[Paid Content, Previously. Pic via]

About as ridiculous as charging tens of thousands of dollars to teach students how to pick up a phone, ask people questions, think about what they tell you, and write. You know, like journalism school!

Update: Lest you scoff at Birmingham City University's new-media credentials, Cal Henderson, the Flickr engineer with a surprisingly numerous geek-girl fanclub, would like everyone to know he's a proud alumnus. "No Twitter course in my day though," he adds, with a tearful emoticon.

Instead, Parr links to analyst Jeremy Owyang's compilation of people with social media job titles at "Fortune 5000" (sic) companies. There's no such thing as the "Fortune 5000," but other than that, Owyang's list is real enough. And yet he has only identified 129 jobs among America's largest corporations. That's hardly a new career category — any company that size has many more people writing the product manuals no one reads.

On increasing reach and traffic, Parr says:

Social media allows people to spread their message to hundreds, if not thousands, of friends, followers, and strangers. Some companies can only dream of that kind of reach, while others pay millions in advertising for the same effect.

Companies pay millions for what? For TV ads, and for a reason: TV reaches not hundreds, not thousands, but millions of people. That's orders of magnitude more reach than Twitter, with proven results. The conclusion that mass media advertising is dead and the kids only trust teh tweets now doesn't come from market research. It comes from social media consultants looking for new clients.

Twitter allows a company to respond to customer complaints quickly (I’ve had personal experience with Comcast’s Twitter account).

That's called Twitter Appeasement. Parr has been glad-handed by a customer service rep in Philadelphia cherrypicking menial problems to address. Southwest Airlines does this, too. Comcast has realized that by fawning over a few select users, they can claim to be turning around their bad reputation for customer service. Three of the country's most-read newspapers — USA Today, The New York Times, and The Washington Post — have picked up the tale.

But what fraction of the company's support load do you think Comcast's lone tweeter represents? He sends about 50 "Can I help?" messages a day, and talks to an average of ten of the company's customers. All too often, he ends up routing Twitter users into Comcast's support email, which they should've used in the first place. As customer service, this is terribly inefficient. As cheap PR, it's awesome.

Parr also claims social media jobs increase corporate revenue — again without any stats to back it up. Which new hire do you think would bring in more money: Another salesman or another FriendFeed guy?

Here's a more realistic conclusion: Social media technologies are new IT tools for the same old roles. Parr and his fans desperately want to believe Corporate America will soon create entire new divisions of social media jobs just for them. They'll be their own special-forces arm of the company, with a Chief Social Media Officer reporting directly to the CEO. Any day now!

Yes, big corporations will adopt social media to stay in touch with customers. But they'll do it by giving social media tools to existing parts of the organization: Customer support. Marketing. Public relations. And contrary to Parr's thin-air claims, I'm guessing that in a downturn, the guy who spends all day on Twitter will be first to go.

VCs already were asking why should I not worry about Facebook copying [your widgets]. But it was a theoretical question. Now, it is practical and amplified. I think that Facebook has really killed the potential for investment in the platform or the attractiveness to entrepreneurs. I am unaware of a single VC investment in a Facebook app company post the new regime (Sheryl, Elliot, policy enforcement). and now this will definitely affect matters. The last two VC investments I believe were Friends For Sale and SGN [Social Gaming Network] — doubt either investor is happy nor would they do the same deal again.

If our widgetmaker source is correct, it is bad news for at least two Facebook hangers-on — Zynga, a widgetmaker and SocialMedia, an ad-network for Facebook widgetmakers. Both are trying to prove him wrong by raising a new round of financing.

A source tells us SocialMedia founder Seth Goldstein spent last week in New York trying to raise $20 million. A VC in the community confirms he's recently heard Goldstein's pitch. Goldstein himself tells us, "We're talking to investors," but he wouldn't confirm the terms.

Zynga, which in January raised $10 million in funding from Union Square Ventures, Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman, and Bob Pittman, is said to have hired a bank in order to find more funding.

Goldstein says that those worried about worried whether Facebook's aggressive moves against Slide will stunt VC investment in startup widgetmakers should worry about top widgetmakers like Slide or its closest rival, RockYou, instead.

These guys wanted to believe there wouldn't be a long tail of apps on the Facebook platform. But Facebook wants lots of little apps relevant to lots of little groups. Two guys from Estonia will be able to beat a team of 45 top flight engineers. Facebook doesn't want three major developers taking over the platform like some kind of CBS, NBC and ABC. Top Facebook apps aren't all going to be made South of Market.

Remember, Goldstein's a Facebook bull because his business depends on it. But one way to read his comment is as a confirmation that no one — including VCs — should expect widgetmakers to turn into large media companies. There may be a future on the Facebook platform, but last year's frenzy that once led HotorNot founder James Hong to declare the Facebook platform "the new Internet"? It's over.

The company's founder, Seth Goldstein, is obviously bullish, telling Inside Facebook that "social banners tend to perform at approximately 2-4x the rate of traditional banners, depending on the social content within them." Borrowing language from Google, Goldstein credits the performance to an alogorithm he calls "FriendRank."

If two of your friends recommended a movie to you, one of the two recommendations is going to have a higher psychological impact. FriendRank determines which of these two people should be presented to you in order to maximize the effectiveness of the ad for the advertiser, and the relevancy of the ad for the user. People have, on average, 150 friends. It’s not enough to just stick some of them in ads. You have to know who the right friends are, and that’s what FriendRank determines

It all sounds like what Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg should have done with Beacon, right? It's what we thought Facebook's SocialAds were going to be before Facebook launched them. But an executive at one of the more popular widgetmakers preaches caution: "[We're] not persuaded yet. Seth is good at spin, less accomplished at shipping real products that customers desire."

• Jeff Quipp wrote 2 posts which comprise the definitive how-to guide for bad guys: "How to Bury Negative Online Mentions of You - Intermediate Level Tactics" and "50+ Sites To Help You Bury Negative Posts About You or Your Company!"
• David Wallace, in his post "Using Social Media To Help Manage Online Reputation," serves up an illustrated do-it-yourself guide to exploiting social media and blogs to "control" online reputation.
• Stuntduble, in the classic lay-it-out-for-anyone-to-easily-understand style, offers "Reputation Management Emancipation Proclamation - 10 Ways to "Own Yourself" Online." Think about the ramifications!

Same guy, and it looks like his move to California has been a boon to his common sense. In an interview with the late, lamented Business 2.0, Goldstein comes clean with the most honest thing ever said about running a startup.

All of entrepreneurship is a sort of confidence game. So all along I thought I had a clear plan; it's only later, looking back, that I realize I didn't know what the fuck I was doing.