The What is Twitter | Square Jaw Media

30Jun/108

The “What” is Twitter

Last year I wrote a blog post about why I stopped subscribing to the daily newspaper. Only a year of time has passed but it seems like 5 years have passed since then. In my post I asked “now what?” Well in that time I’ve found that the answer to that is Twitter.

I frequent Twitter more often than Facebook or LinkedIn on a daily basis for a few reasons. The first being that it’s easy to scan Twitter streams, much like newspaper headlines. I’m a big scanner and I tend to search for keywords that spark my interest. Of course the downside to this is I sometimes miss information but so does everyone else. But for the most part I click through to articles of interest to read and sometimes share.

Second is the ability to group content using Twitter lists. I group my lists much like the sections of the paper: local news, sports, entertainment and national news feeds. I also have a group of approximately 200 local people that I follow on a regular basis. Once you get over 150+ friends it’s too much data to track on the main feed. Segmentation is key. And I'm a local news junkie in that I'm more interested in what's going on in my area and the local people making news. Twitter allows me to keep abreast of what's happening in my community.

Third is that Twitter is real time. Gone are the days of getting yesterday’s news in today’s paper and catching a 20 minute recap of national nightly news. I do miss CNN Headline News when they did the 20 minute recap all day long. Now CNN is like a bad cable reality show of people trying to make news interesting. Just the facts please, no need to entertain me I want to be informed. If the story is big it will be retweeted to death and that gets my attention even if I’m offline for a period of time.

Now I would only be telling part of the story if I did not state that some of the Twitter feeds that I follow are newspapers and news organizations. As these media companies have started using social media sites, it allows us as consumers to continue our relationship with the media outlets that we've known and trusted for so many years.

I also want to point out like I did in my post last year that part of me feels empty with newspapers dying. For one I know that many journalists and newspaper staff do it for their love of reporting, writing and publishing. Newspapers were never the wealthy choice of communication professionals. So to those that have seen their industry shrink yet still work hard to be their reader’s advocates and report the facts you have my greatest respect.

Do you still subscribe to the daily newspaper? If not how do you get your news and information?

No related posts.

Print This Post

Comments (8) Trackbacks (2) ( subscribe to comments on this post )

Jeff Tippett
June 30th, 2010 - 09:30

Thanks for posting. No, I don’t subscribe to any newspapers. I read the N&O and NYT on my iPhone early mornings while sipping coffee on my porch. I also catch up on WRAL the same way–I no longer watch their broadcasts live.

Like you, I consume a lot of news VIA Twitter.
Brian McDonald
June 30th, 2010 - 10:36

Jeff thanks for your feedback. Yes I think we are at a crossroads for news consumption. The power of today’s tools do allow us to create our own virtual news portal and there’s no turning back!
Jay Dolan
June 30th, 2010 - 23:16

I love reading the paper. I love sitting down and getting analysis that goes deeper then 140 characters. I love how one section will have international news, and the another is filled with games and comic strips.

Is it efficient? No. Earth-friendly? No. I still think my twenty minutes skimming through the N&O are some of the best of my day.
Brian McDonald
July 1st, 2010 - 10:43

Jay I agree with you that reading the paper in the morning is a great relaxing experience. My decision to stop was that the quality and quantity of the product was being reduced at an alarming rate. Your point about sections was what I was discussing in my post in that you can create subject matter groups with Twitter tools like Hootsuite and Tweetdeck. Also I don’t think the 140 characters is the news but a headline and link to the full story. Thanks for your thoughts.
Christina Gates
July 1st, 2010 - 15:13

I stopped my subscription to the N&O about two years ago, as I found I started to seek that kind of information online. Like Jay, I used to love sitting down with the crossword and a cup of coffee in the morning — definitely miss that aspect. I used to work in PR at a book publishing house. In 2009 particularly, it was devastating to see so many journalist colleagues across the country losing their jobs and taking buy-outs (A&E eds. must be one of the first things to go!). I think I’m still a little in shock that Gourmet folded…
Brian McDonald
July 11th, 2010 - 11:36

Christina, thanks for your comment. Same as you, my PR experience saw the elimination of trade pubs that I had worked with for many years. Those who were proactive were able to build portals and online information sites, while others ignored the trends and saw their readership, advertising and other revenue sources dry up!
Karl Sakas
July 11th, 2010 - 22:11

@Brian: Many people I’ve interviewed talked about using Twitter as a fairly effective news aggregator, even to the point of replacing 200-300 blogs in their RSS reader. I enjoy subscribing to the Sunday New York Times…partly for access the NYTimes.com pay wall, but also for the tactile feeling of reading good content on real paper.
Brian McDonald
July 13th, 2010 - 09:31

Karl, yes I think I answered it that way as well! I do miss the tactile sense of reading the paper but after a year, it has worn away.