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Observations on digital media by the faculty and staff of the Knight Digital Media Center at UC Berkeley.
The News Leadership 3.0 weblog by the Knight Digital Media Center at USC Annenberg.
Among the horde of Web 2.0 sites popping up each day, it seems the newest craze to emerge online is the Twitter social network. Very suddenly we are getting lots of questions about Twitter; people wanting to know what it is, how it works and most importantly how journalists can best use it in their newsrooms.
Well the first part is easy to answer, and I thought a blog post explaining what exactly Twitter is would be beneficial for our community. The second part however -- well that is a little more difficult to answer. Since Twitter is so new, we don't have any hard evidence or studies of how best to use it. But we do have lots of anecdotal evidence to suggest the sentiment of the Twitter community and what they want.
Twitter is a type of "micro-blogging" similar to the status update on other sites like Facebook. Put simply, it's 140 characters explaining what a person is doing at any given time.
When you sign up for a Twitter account, the first thing you will be presented with is a form and a large glowing title that reads: "What are you doing?" You have room for only a couple of sentences to describe anything you want. People who add your account to their "Twitter Feed" will see these updates as you post them. A specific Twitter post is called a "tweet."
The 140 character limit is important to note, because that is universally the maximum length of most cell phone SMS text messages. The Twitter service has functionality built into it that allows people to update their status by sending a text message to a short-code number. The idea that people can update their Twitter page anytime from anywhere is really what sets Twitter apart from say, a simple blog, Facebook or MySpace. Many sites like Facebook have similar services built into them, but the simplicity, portability and accessibility of Twitter has contributed to its quick rise.
(See "tweets" from around the world via TwitterVision.com)
The easiest way to start Twittering is to sign up for a free account on their Web site http://twitter.com. From there you can also update your status, profile and mobile phone settings from the Web site.
Also contributing to Twitter's popularity is the ability to integrate Twitter with 3rd party programs. Various software programs have been built to allow people to both update their Twitter account and view their Twitter feeds. Some of these include desktop program or software for mobile devices.
A list of endorsed Twitter apps can be found on the Twitter site: http://twitter.com/downloads or on a user contributed wiki: http://twitter.pbwiki.com/Apps.
Using Twitter -- as with most online services -- can best be done by using them for their intended purpose: telling people what you are doing.
With the rise of Twitter's popularity, many news organizations have jumped on the bandwagon by creating Twitter accounts. But, it seems all of these organizations have simply been filling their accounts with headlines from their publications. CNN, ABC News, MSNBC, NY Times, Chicago Tribune and dozens of other news organizations have created twitter accounts and post nothing more than the day's news headlines.
The only problem is, you can get this same information from their RSS Feed:
MSNBC Twitter account: http://twitter.com/msnbc
MSNBC RSS Feed: http://rss.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032091/device/rss/rss.xml
Anyone with an RSS feed reader can get these headlines each day. Twittering the headlines defeats the social community aspect that Twitter offers. Twitter is so much more than just a simple feed reader to view headlines.
The NY Times realized they had too many headlines to fill a single account, so they formed several accounts for each section of the paper:
http://twitter.com/nyt_biz
http://twitter.com/nyt_sports
http://twitter.com/nyt_style
http://twitter.com/nyt_movies
http://twitter.com/nyt_arts
http://twitter.com/nyt_national
http://twitter.com/nyt_metro
http://twitter.com/nyt_books
http://twitter.com/nyt_science
http://twitter.com/nyt_health
http://twitter.com/nyt_travel
http://twitter.com/nyt_food
http://twitter.com/nyt_world
http://twitter.com/nyt_politics
Even one just on John Edwards' presidential campaign: http://twitter.com/nyt_johnedwards
Anyone who has used Twitter, knows that it is about more than just getting headlines. People who want NY Times headlines, would probably just visit the NY Times Web site. Why not?
Twitter is about getting updates on people and organizations you care about. This could include a link to a story, but only when the immediacy and newsworthiness of that story suggests informing the Twitter community. Twitter at its heart is about communication. Imagine coming to a party and saying, "Did you hear?" You wouldn't spout off every headline in the news, but just about the events that allow you to keep up with those around you.
Also, the one aspect that made Twitter so unique (and ironically is rarely used by news organizations) is the portability nature to "micro-blog." With a cell phone, you can take Twitter anywhere and inform the public about what you are doing.
It's simple, use it for what it was intended for; keeping people updating with what you're doing. This could be individual reporters twittering about what stories they are working on and the stories they have slated for the future release. Building community is always more powerful than simply adding another delivery point for the news. This level of transparency might cause unease for traditional journalists, but is at the very spirit of the online social movement.
The question we get asked a lot is, "who is using Twitter the right way?" Well, that's easy to answer, just look at the numbers.
MSNBC - 250 followers (They Twitter every headline)
CNN World - 789 followers (They Twitter every headline)
Barack Obama - 35,564 followers (Campaign Twitter's what he's doing)
Kevin Rose, editor of digg.com - 39,426 followers (Twitter's what he's doing)
Mars Phoenix Rover - 17,658 (NASA Twitter's what it's doing on Mars)
One exception is CNN "Breaking" News which only Twitters when there is an exceptional headline. Usually once every few days.
CNN Breaking News - 20,672 (Twitter occasionally when it's important)
In fact, CNN Breaking is the only mainstream news source to break into the top 100 twitter accounts. The others are mostly individuals. via twitterholic.com
Hopefully this helps news organizations to understand and begin to experiment with the social aspects of Twitter. It's more than just news distribution (in much the same way the Web itself is more than just a distribution platform). News organizations need to understand the Web as a community.
35 Twitter Tips from 35 Twitter users
Facts and Opinions about the Twitosphere
The Several Habits of Wildly Successful Twitter Users
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Comments
1 Kevin Hessel says...
Through one of your own links to Problogger:
"One surprising thing that I found when I started publishing my stories on Twitter was that some Twitter readers told me that they now read ProBlogger exclusively through Twitter - to the point that they didn’t check the feed anymore. At first I was a little concerned by this - but then i realized that it was a good thing because those readers had found a way that fit more with their own rhythm to read my content."
I think that's huge. One of the reasons the media explores social networking is to bring our content to the places people reside and spend their time, and to fit the way they like the information delivered to them. Many people -- including myself -- use Twitter as a replacement for RSS feeds. Why tell readers that's “better” if they want to do it differently? Isn’t that the antithesis of what we're trying to achieve? I don't want to subscribe to a bunch of feeds that aggregate either in several places in my browser, or in a feed reader (meaning I now have my browser, feed reader and Twitter app all open) when I can get everything in one place on Twitter, as it's happening! Not to mention that High Influentials and TwitterStars and friends with shared interests may be Tweeting about the news surrounding those very headlines, which puts the Twitter conversations into context and offers instant, clickable opportunities to catch up with the conversation. This is why it's important to stream your headlines. It's automatic and takes almost no effort to maintain after initial setup. If 100, 200 or 800 Twitterers want to read their news that way -- especially if we know it's the ONLY way they're reading us -- can we really afford to disregard this audience considering the current state of the media? At my newspaper, Twitter has become a Top 25 referrer -- of more than 3,000 -- in just three weeks of streaming headlines.
I definitely don't consider it a don't!
I also think this article needs to compare organizations and personalities more realistically. Kevin Rose is a personality -- a rock star of sorts among early adopters and tech geeks. (And his following might be more about groupthink and cool factor than actually paying attention to what he says. There's more value in 300 people paying attention than 30,000 ignoring you, right?) But what isn't mentioned is that Digg has half a dozen Twitter accounts in which all they do is stream headlines. Digg is separating the organization (headlines) from the personalities (personal updates). This should be the model for newspapers. Yes, by all means, post those headlines! It's not a don't! But get your reporters online, your photographers, your executive editor, and have them Twitter, too. It makes them part of the community, it opens the dialog, it's social, and it can become a tool for our jobs to create a better product and connect more with our audience.
Posted at 2:57 a.m. on June 5, 2008
2 Jeremy Rue says...
Kevin, you made a good argument; one which I think is valid. I guess my beef was for news organizations that "only" post links to their stories.
I understand your argument for RSS consolidation. I suppose one could fill their Twitter account with tons of organizations that are doing exactly what the NY Times/MSNBC does, and get all of the latest headlines without having to visit each site; just like an RSS reader. But, I think that would be using twitter for a very different purpose.
I guess my advice would be if a newspaper wants to twitter each headline, then it probably should. It's not going to hurt anything. But in addition to that, reporters and editors should create individual twitter accounts and use them to publish interesting tidbits about what they are doing in the news world. (I guess this is in agreement with what you said)
For me personally, Twitter seems like a much more personal tool. And it irked me that so many organizations were treating just like they did the Web; as nothing more than a distribution platform.
When the Web really got big in the late 90s, every newspaper just shoveled its stories on the Web, every radio station put its same radio broadcasts on the Web and all the TV news stations just threw the same broadcasts on their Web site. Instead, they had an opportunity to treat the Web as a medium that could tell very unique stories. It could be interactive, engaging, and innovative.
Posted at 10:06 p.m. on June 8, 2008
3 Mario Giordani says...
I appreciate the article as well as the "35 Twitter Tips from 35 Twitter users" which was very helpful to me.
Posted at 8:10 p.m. on August 24, 2008
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