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What's changed?
I think two things happened. The first was the rapid succession of news coming from people twittering plane crashes and mumbai terror attacks. That gave the service all too often derided as being about "what I had for my breakfast" a certain credibility as a reporting tool, one that could be faster than TV or the conventional web page..
And, much as I hate to admit it, I think the very visible presence of celebs like Stephen Fry and Jonathan Ross on Twitter has something to do with it. That creates an impression, perhaps only subconsciously, that this is a real tool, not just a play thing of the engagement evangalists like me.
Anyway, whatever the cause, I'm delighted to see growing numbers of journalists starting to use Twitter to engage with each other and (hopefully) their readers. The next couple of months could be very interesting indeed.
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I've noticed an increase in journalists using Twitter on this side of the pond as well. Most are using it for conversation, which is nice. And they are differentiating their tweets from those of their newspapers--which usually end up being only headlines. I think this is a good balance.
However, there's also been an uptick in bad, tactless marketers and p.r. people as well. Many seem to be playing a numbers game re followers (as if having lots of followers makes you important in twitter.) Most are just trying to get their message on as many twitter streams as possible. I'm fine with them following me (although I do keep my eye on them indirectly) but I do not follow them back. My twitter stream is not there to give them free advertising.
I can add another reason to your list :)
Last week was my first week back after the Christmas break and as such wasn’t as manic as usual. So I had a bit of time to invest in trying to get my head around Twitter (and some New Year enthusiasm). A week later and I’m hooked.
Expect my next breakthrough in 12 months time…
Think you're right - I've noticed this across several professional fields. Over the last two months twitter seems to be growing exponentially. Be interesting to see what the total user numbers are now...
Yes, I've seen a little of that. I rather liked PRBlogger's take on it.
Better hope there's only one major social media innovation a year, then, hmmmm? :-)
I had first-hand experience of people using to monitor their beats this week. Tweeted something about a Take That video shoot in Croydon the other day (yes, really) and had a local paper on the phone within 10 minutes. They aren't following me, so guess they're using a 'Croydon' search feed to look for stories.
Take That: big in Croydon.
It's the new big in Japan. ;-)
That was us here at the Croydon Advertiser! Nathan's right, I use a summize RSS feed for Croydon, which is how I picked it up. It mainly picks up tweets about people moaning about how depressing East Croydon station is, or how much they hate the town itself, but occasionally you get a gem like this, which has been my personal favourite.
It's also useful for finding people who live in Croydon to follow - and if I'm in the position to reply to questions about traffic delays, M&S closing, etc, I dive right in. People are sometimes a little freaked out, but the vast majority follow back, or say thanks for the info.
Apologies for the shameless plug, but for those who are interested in Take That, here's the link to the story (excuse the shaky video, it was the first proper outing for the Flip):
http://www.thisiscroydontoday.co.uk/news/filming-music-video-Croydon-street/article-615047-detail/article.html
We are also part of the RBI Twitterati and joined in March 2007.
Although there was nothing in it for us for a while, 2008 saw a huge change.
We've also added around 600 followers in the past 3 months.
In fact, conversations we used to have on the Travolution Blog are now taking place, primarily on Twitter.
All we need now is some of the senior execs who comment on our blog to also switch.
Likelihood very low at present. ;-(
Hey - click "moribund" and you get me! Well I looked up moribund in my dictionary...
In reply to Wadsworth - Croydon Advertiser. Funny how it was your rival paper the Croydon Guardian which broke this story online after an old fashioned tip off from a contact. The Advertiser was left playing catch up again.
Educational linkage at its very best. ;-)
The real story - you make a good point, we didn't break the story that time (although I didn't claim we had). But then, I would argue we were both beaten to it by Nathan.