Jacob Harris, a senior software engineer for The New York Times, says Twitter is "the right kind of stupid."
He's responding to those who have called Twitter a pointless, overrated or simply stupid site. Harris says sites like this can help news organizations figure out how to present, consume and interact with the news.
At its most basic level, Twitter is a networking tool that helps users
keep abreast of what
friends, or strangers, are doing. For news organizations, it is a
resource for publishing work, communicating with other journalists and finding story ideas.
"I feel that the next big things will be found
by some tinkerer putting a bunch of pieces together in new and
interesting ways (remember a light bulb is just some glass and a metal
wire)," Harris said via e-mail. "Twitter's just a stupid example of this. Other
smart possibilities are out there, things like
mapplets in Google,
screen savers that show you the news ..."
Along with The New York Times, other news organizations such as CNN, the Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel and The (Portland) Oregonian are using
Twitter to post breaking news alerts and updates on sports, business
and traffic, that can be
read via cell phone text messages, instant messaging or on a user's Web
browser. Here is Poynter's Twitter page.
Harris said he doesn't see any major drawbacks to news organizations using Twitter. "If
anything, it provides a new way to reach some readers. I suppose there
might be a risk if journalists leaked internal information accidentally
via Twitter, but these risks are not unique to the medium, and I think
it might be cool in terms of transparency if more journalists did
Twitter both on the stories they're covering or their general lives and
interests."
To help prevent others from obtaining information on Twitter pages, Twitterers can choose to "protect" their updates on Twitter, meaning they can control who sees them. Twitter pages that don't have protected updates can be read by anyone who knows of, or happens to stumble across, the page.
One advantage to starting a Twitter account for a news organization, Harris said, is that it doesn't take much time to create. And it's free. "I personally created
the feed as a joke and a minor experiment. … I was wondering what would
be the cheapest and fastest possible way to get a
New York Times headline feed on a cell phone in one day," Harris said. "It took me an idle afternoon to get it done."
Twitter users, called
"Twitterers," can post "tweets" for "followers"
to view. Harris has noticed that at least one Twitterer, RSS pioneer Dave Winer, has made an "unofficial" New York Times Twitter account. The spot for "bio" information on this account reads: "All the news that's fit to twit." Just like the official New York Times Twitter page, Winer's page lists Times headlines with links to corresponding articles. Winer's page has about 80 followers; the official Times page has almost 400. Harris said that as long as Twitterers aren't branding themselves as the Times by using the official Times logo, he doesn't see any real issue with others posting the Times' RSS feeds to their Twitter pages.
The Oregonian has one main
breaking news Twitter page with about 90 followers, as well as pages for business, traffic and sports, which have 12 to 20 followers each. The pages are fed automatically using RSS feeds from
corresponding blogs on the Oregonian's Web site.
"True, someone could pretend to be a news organization (that was one reason I grabbed the Oregonian name, so no one else would), but I think if someone did that and started posting fake news, that'd be pretty obvious pretty quick," online editor Mark Friesen told me via e-mail. "I don't think they'd get enough traction to be damaging."
Figuring Out How and When to Use Twitter
Twitter has been an ongoing experiment at the Orlando Sentinel, where John Cutter, senior editor/online news, is trying to figure out how the site can best serve the Sentinel and its users.
"If we think, wow, this is something I'd want to know right
now -- the death of someone famous, a major road closure, charges in a
significant ongoing case, something big from a major local company like Disney
-- then we would Twitter it, as well as send other alerts," Cutter said.
The Sentinel's most recent posts were related to the Atlantis and Endeavour space shuttle launches this summer. In the
hours leading up to the launches, the Sentinel
used Twitter to post live feeds, which were accompanied by periodic traffic
updates for drivers who may have been in a rush to go home and watch the
launch. The Sentinel also posted links to its Web site, encouraging viewers to read
the Sentinel's blog and related articles, and to watch its video of the shuttle
launch.
Since Twitter posts can be no more than 140 words, the entries appear as short, linear snippets. Take a look:
Countdown has resumed. 9 minutes and counting to
6:36 p.m. shuttle launch. [...]
06:28 PM August
08, 2007 from web.
After three attempts, NASA gets shuttle hatch
closed, so we're a go at moment for 6:36 p.m. launch. 05:23 PM August
08, 2007 from web.
Accident closes State Road 46 near
Seminole-Brevard line; use another route if you are on way to shuttle launch. 03:44 PM August
08, 2007 from web.
Fueling is done, looking good for 6:36 p.m.
shuttle launch. We're here with Twitter, live stream and blog: http://www.orlandosentinel.com
01:20 PM August
08, 2007 from web.
About 50 people became
Twitter followers after the Atlantis launch, Cutter said, while about 10 started following after the Endeavour launch. Currently, the site has 75 followers.
Determining whether
Twitter is having an impact on users can be difficult, particularly for Web
editors who frequently check their site's metrics -- how many people visit the
site, how long they stay on it, what articles/multimedia they look at, etc. Cutter said he can check how many followers the Sentinel's Twitter page has but can't check who receives the
Twitter alerts or how many people turn to the Sentinel's print or online
edition as a result, unless they go directly from Twitter to the OrlandoSentinel.com.
One appeal to Twitter, Cutter said, is its potential to help journalists report while in the field. "It isn't the potential of breaking news alerts that
interests me on Twitter. I think it is the micro-blog possibilities -- either at
an event like the shuttle, or if one of our bloggers could extend his
or her blog community to the Twitter community," Cutter said. "That could be during an
event -- let's say the music critic uses Twitter at a big concert or
festival to send Tweets and receive them from readers at the show ... Same, say, with a sportswriter or one of our columnists, either at an
event or just day to day."
Using Twitter to Report, Find Story Ideas and Network
Steve Dorsey, assistant managing editor for graphics at the
Detroit Free Press, said that while at a recent Sheryl Crow concert, he Twittered the
Free Press' live Web desk when musician Kid Rock unexpectedly joined Crow on stage.
Dorsey's tweets did not end up getting used, perhaps because many in the newsroom are still unsure of what to do with Twitter. "I find that most people ... still don’t know what Twitter is, and certainly
most newsroom reporters, editors are included in that. I knew what it was long
before I used it -- I tried to resist it, in fact, but now I’m fascinated by what
we can learn from these social networks and micro-blogging," he said.
Journalists can also use Twitter to get tips for story ideas through
updates from other organizations. The Los Angeles Fire Department, for
instance,
has its own Twitter account.
Most days, the department updates its site with posts every
hour or so. Rather than listen to the scanner, reporters in Los Angeles could
look at this site for fire department updates. Or, journalists could
search
Twitter's public timeline and look for trends to develop into a story. Journalists can also "find folks" in the search option on the right-hand side of each Twitter page. Type in the word "journalist," for instance, and you'll get more than 300 results.
Some journalists are even using Twitter to find jobs. The British journalism site,
journalism.co.uk., has a Twitter account that sends job updates to any subscribers who write "Looking for a job" in response to Twitter's question, "What are you doing?" Followers of
journalism.co.uk's Twitter site can also have job updates instant-messaged or text-messaged to them through Twitter.
Joe Grimm, recruiting and development editor for the
Detroit Free Press and writer of
"Ask the Recruiter," joined Twitter earlier this month. He said he plans to start out small and then develop his use of Twitter depending on feedback from other journalists.
"My thoughts at the outset are to post about once a day so that people who apply for internships can see where we are in the selection process. This might save them some phone calls or e-mails," Grimm said. "The little Twitter posts will mix some of the personal with some of the professional to humanize things a bit, but I think it will be most useful in letting people know where I am in the area of recruiting."
Click here to share your feedback/questions/ideas about Twitter in the Journalists and Facebook discussion group.
Great tips, but an important one is missing. How about...
