Gruven Reuven comments on The JTA Fail Whale
As Mottel said, "Yasher Koach" to the folks who made the list. It was really awesome to see a lot of my friends get well deserved shout outs!! I do however blush that Mottel wrote this blog post, just as I blushed at the number of public tweets and private DM telling me that I "should have made the list". Thanks everyone... I guess I need to weigh in my 2 Zuzim
Hope this doesn't come off sounding like sour grapes because it's not... I've been interviewed and or written up by the BBC, Jerusalem Post, NPR, Forward & New York Times for the informal Kiruv work I do on the Internet. (I also lead Torah Study Groups on Secondlife) So me not not making the list from JTANews really isn't a big deal.
For me, It's not about lists. Matter fact I feel uncomfortable about the "love" I get on #FollowFridays. Admittedly, I don't list folks back. Not because I do not appreciate my friends on Twitter, but more so because I don't want to offend folks by leaving them off. I also don't want to sit down and select folks like that. I share the love by re-tweeting posts that strike my fancy.
I tweet about Torah, because I had my eyes opened to Torah 9 years ago when I became a BT. I love nothing more then to turn fellow Jews on to this most amazing multi faceted gem we have. I do not tweet to see how many followers I can get or what lists I can make. I tweet because I love to share Torah. I tweet because I like to show folks you can be Very Frum and still be plugged into the world around you. I like to tweet to show the world being Frum doesn't mean separating yourself from society, It's about connecting with fellow Jews from ALL walks of Judaism to talk words of Torah.
From my point of view this list was obviously nothing more then an effort to get much needed eyeballs on the the JTA website. The real question is NOT why isn't gruven_reuven or Elipongo on the list, but why isn't the likes of LeahJones, Matisyahu Or Lenny Kravtiz on the list. (I didn't even know Lenny was on twitter :-) JTANews specifically called these folks out for being too popular.
Time Magazine just released a similar list of the 100 most influential people in the World. Of course Obama made the list. Would it make any sense to exclude him from this list because he's the president of the United States, and naturally would be influential? Of course not! That wouldn't make any sense at all.
So WHY exclude big name Jewish Twitter users? My theory is that these folks really wouldn't care about making this list and wouldn't blog or tweet about it. What JTANews wants is folks to re-tweet and blog about being on their list, thus getting eyeballs on their site.
Again as noted, I also find it in "bad taste" that the JTA advertisers that have a presence on twitter made their list.
So really, I wouldn't sweat this list. To me (at first glance) this list shows that JTA does not have a reputation for journalistic integrity, nor is its analysis really insightful. TO BE FAIR, this was the only article I've ever read on JTA, so I can't generalize the organization based on one article based on questionable analysis. Heck, even Jimmy Rollins strikes out sometimes.
Technorati Tags: JTA, Twitter, Comments, Judaism
As Mottel said, "Yasher Koach" to the folks who made the list. It was really awesome to see a lot of my friends get well deserved shout outs!! I do however blush that Mottel wrote this blog post, just as I blushed at the number of public tweets and private DM telling me that I "should have made the list". Thanks everyone... I guess I need to weigh in my 2 Zuzim
Hope this doesn't come off sounding like sour grapes because it's not... I've been interviewed and or written up by the BBC, Jerusalem Post, NPR, Forward & New York Times for the informal Kiruv work I do on the Internet. (I also lead Torah Study Groups on Secondlife) So me not not making the list from JTANews really isn't a big deal.
For me, It's not about lists. Matter fact I feel uncomfortable about the "love" I get on #FollowFridays. Admittedly, I don't list folks back. Not because I do not appreciate my friends on Twitter, but more so because I don't want to offend folks by leaving them off. I also don't want to sit down and select folks like that. I share the love by re-tweeting posts that strike my fancy.
I tweet about Torah, because I had my eyes opened to Torah 9 years ago when I became a BT. I love nothing more then to turn fellow Jews on to this most amazing multi faceted gem we have. I do not tweet to see how many followers I can get or what lists I can make. I tweet because I love to share Torah. I tweet because I like to show folks you can be Very Frum and still be plugged into the world around you. I like to tweet to show the world being Frum doesn't mean separating yourself from society, It's about connecting with fellow Jews from ALL walks of Judaism to talk words of Torah.
From my point of view this list was obviously nothing more then an effort to get much needed eyeballs on the the JTA website. The real question is NOT why isn't gruven_reuven or Elipongo on the list, but why isn't the likes of LeahJones, Matisyahu Or Lenny Kravtiz on the list. (I didn't even know Lenny was on twitter :-) JTANews specifically called these folks out for being too popular.
Time Magazine just released a similar list of the 100 most influential people in the World. Of course Obama made the list. Would it make any sense to exclude him from this list because he's the president of the United States, and naturally would be influential? Of course not! That wouldn't make any sense at all.
So WHY exclude big name Jewish Twitter users? My theory is that these folks really wouldn't care about making this list and wouldn't blog or tweet about it. What JTANews wants is folks to re-tweet and blog about being on their list, thus getting eyeballs on their site.
Again as noted, I also find it in "bad taste" that the JTA advertisers that have a presence on twitter made their list.
So really, I wouldn't sweat this list. To me (at first glance) this list shows that JTA does not have a reputation for journalistic integrity, nor is its analysis really insightful. TO BE FAIR, this was the only article I've ever read on JTA, so I can't generalize the organization based on one article based on questionable analysis. Heck, even Jimmy Rollins strikes out sometimes.
Technorati Tags: JTA, Twitter, Comments, Judaism
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