We all make mistakes that are overlooked before we hit publish.

I’m always thankful when you point out my typos and other mistakes. That’s one of the reasons my contact info is on every page.

Heck, wiki systems are even have error correction is baked into their DNA.

This morning I spotted a typo on a BBC.co.uk article.

While there’s sharing badges all over the page – there’s no obvious link to contact the author or anyone else at the BBC to remove the extra ‘a’ in this specific article. I can’t even tell who wrote the article.

Clicking the ’email’ and ‘printer’ icons obviously won’t help. Do I click the Facebook icon? The Twitter icon?

From this, it’s clear that ‘social media’ has transformed into a secondary broadcast distribution system – rather than a way to engage with readers to create a higher quality product.

I’m writing this here not to call out the BBC specifically – as the typo was fixed as I was writing this – but to raise a question about outsourcing the customer relationship to a distribution company.