Microblogging Technology is Changing the News
Twitter.com Breaking New Ground for Social Networking Sites
Dec 14, 2008
It's like the rumor mill on crack. Instead of "he said, she said" on a local level, the Internet has taken news from one's peers to a global level.
While some say it depletes news one can trust, others would argue that it's not all bad. For those who can sort through the bull and recognize actual news sources, microblogging is the future..
Social Networking and the News
Newspapers on the local, national and international levels — like The Telegraph in London and the New York Times — have gotten in on the fun, creating microblogging profiles at a popular Web site called Twitter.com.
Unlike Facebook, MySpace and others, Twitter only lets users update their profiles 140 characters at a time. in the frm of status updates. Luckily, that's all newspapers need to get the word out to users about a breaking news story or something recently posted on their sites.
Users can sign up on Twitter to "follow" these news organizations and even set up their cell phones to receive text message updates whenever that organization posts a new story, or "tweet," as they are called in Twitter land.
Engines like Twitterfeed and others allow news organizations to set up RSS feeds from their main sites to actually post these stories, taking away the extra step of having to post content a second time on another site altogether. Those engines make the Twitter pages virtually self-sufficient and easy to use.
But most organizations don't stop there. Twitter can be used to interact with users and bring in new users that would be less likely to pop into the organization's main site without a little prompting.
Twitter can also take readers to the scene of live news coverage and more.
Reporting Live Via Text and Twitter
The same way a Twitter page's followers can set up their cell phones to receive messages from a news organization, reporters at that organization can set up their cell phones to send text messages, therefore allowing for live streaming coverage of events.
A reporter at the scene of an accident can text the information as he or she gets it — straight to the news organization's Twitter page — sometimes getting the story to readers before it is even posted on the news organization's main site.
True, reporters can manage that same feat by calling stories in to editors, but with the advent of a new generation of smart phones and other technology, those in journalism have multiple options from which to choose, which make their lives a little easier.
Outside of the actual field of journalism, Twitter puts on site reporting in the hands of just about anyone who can set up a Twitter page, no matter where they are.
This was especially popular during the 2008 election, where Twitter users came together on their computers and cell phones to provide live commentary by the masses while the nation waited for news on who would be the next President of the United States.
On a side note, both candidates actively used Twitter during their campaigns to reach the masses with their respective campaign messages.
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