The following is an edited email exchange between myself and Stephen Totillo, the reporter from MTV who covers video games. Now before you snicker at his beat – I’ll pull a quote from our first exchange:

I’m an NYU graduate with a Master’s in journalism from Columbia. I’ve
been covering video games full-time for MTV News for two and a half
year, making me one of just a small handful of journalists employed by
a non-gaming outlet to cover the beat.

Stephen is a serious journalist who is trying to bring credibility to his beat. Here are is ideas for a social network that can help him report.

——

Slowly but surely, I’ve got two beatblogging projects taking shape. I’d love your feedback on some tech infrastructure.

[The first idea from Stephen]

Game-makers Under 35: I’m leaning
toward doing this one as a non-public project. I’d recruit game
developers under the age of 35 to join me in a Facebook-style group
that I’d use as a sounding board for the young game professional game
designers out there. I’d use the group to generate story ideas, I’d then
report on my own. I’m planning on starting with a core of about six who
I think would do it. I need to pick the right tech for it and then
encourage them to network it out to other developers who fit the
demographic.

The way I see it this would give me
potentially persistent access to people who are going to be young
enough to be engaged by the project (I’m facebook friends with some of
them already) and connected enough that meaningful stories about the
gaming industry would bubble up from the group’s conversations. I’d
keep this group private and collectively anonymous (possible in
Facebook, right?), using custom profiles. So for me, for example, I
wouldn’t use my main profile, but, rather a profile under the name of
something like "U35StephenT." We’d know who each other are, but no one
could find us and friend us unless we invited them.

[The second idea from Stephen]

-American Gamers: This is an idea I
really like as a public project. I’m taking inspiration from MTV News’
own Street Team, which involves a group of students from each of the 50
states who are now doing amateur journalism about the Presidential
campaign. What I’d like is to find a gamer in each of the 50 states and
give them voice to talk publicly about whatever is going on in their
region related to gaming (a gaming convention, a gaming law being
passed by their governor, a new sale for the Wii at the local mall….).
Initially I thought of creating a Twitter feed — possibly hijacking
the Twitter feed we currently have on the MTV gaming blog.
I’d give each person access to the Twitter feed, requiring them to
begin any of their comments with the two-letter abbreviation of their
state.

I thought about this idea some and
thought it would be a great way to give a broad group of gamers a voice
and relatively distinct identities. Since first coming up with the
idea, I’ve been thinking that this whole thing might be far superior as
a Google map or something else more visual than a Twitter feed. I’m
picturing a map of the U.S. that has virtual push-pins or something
that link to comments from each gamer. The map would be cool to look
at, but I don’t know how people would read it. Twitter allows for
conversation to develop. But I’m not sure about how a map could do
that. If the guy in Kentucky was trying to respond to something the guy
in Florida wrote, how would that look on the map? How could anyone
follow that? So, while I like this idea too, I’m not sure what the
right tech is for it and would love your advice.

So… what do you think? The former idea
seems pretty easy to set-up but also a little bit safe. It’s also the
idea that would probably generate higher-profile industry stories. But
the latter idea feels like it could elevate a lot of voices that don’t
get heard, that usually get drowned out by chattering masses on gaming
message boards or ignored by a gaming press that often avoids covering
the people actually playing games.

[My response: Note: We also held a phone call, I've tried to include the content from that conversation in the response below]

I’m glad you wrote. I was actually going to try and call you tomorrow [Call held the next day].

I really like that you are looking into two different projects. I’ll start with the second one – because it is both ambitious and I think very doable, but we may need to get somebody to do some Twitter API work for us. Or, we can hack it with different tools already out there.

I see two options right away.

One Twitter 100: Check this out: http://twitter100.com/digidave What you are looking at is 100 of my friends and all their conversations, at once.

So an easy option would be: Create a new twitter account:
AmericanGamer – make friends with 50 people and then from this page you’ll be able to see their most recent Tweets at any time.

Now this is an easy way to see the conversation, but it isn’t exactly visual. I love the idea of a map – similar to Twittervision.

The problem with Twittervision: It’s public – so your group would be lost in noise.

If we got somebody who could go into Twitter’s API and Google Map’s API – perhaps we could marry the two, so you could have TwitterGroup.com/Digidave – and it would show my top 100 people (just like Twitter 100 AND display it visually like Twittervision)

Another option would be to start a free WordPress blog using this new theme, which allows for a group discussion . That might be an easier visual to swallow. But it would require setting up a side blog. Is that an option for you guys?

As for the first project: Facebook is a good way to find people. You know the demographic of video game makers under 35 better than I do, but I imagine they are on Facebook already – so a group there might work. If you do start small as you are suggestion, six or so people, you will definitely have to engage them, because they might be shy at first.

Do you
want to keep everyone anonymous to each other? If that’s the case -
then you will need to ask people to create anonymous accounts and then
you will be the only one who knows who the others are. If you just want to stay anonymous to the rest of the Facebook
world — they can use their regular Facebook accounts and you will mark
the group as private. In that situation – they will be able to see each
other, but nobody else will (unless you invite them). If you do want to do the first thing – I’d suggest taking it off Facebook and we can talk about other options.

Just fyi: GamerVision – I don’t know (and doubt) that you can create private groups here — but if you can. That would make sense too.

A Google Group works too: The problem here is that you get less of
that "networking" feel – it’s more like random emails from people who
don’t really know who they are writing too. (I will check in with our
Chroncile of Higher Ed writer to see how his Google Group is going.
Last I heard, it was going good – but starting to slow down).