Oh, yawn. Yet another newspaper columnist has a go at Twitter and social networking generally. This time it's Simon Heffer of the Telegraph, and you can predict the main beats of the article: shallow, pointless, empty...
At least he avoids the trap of talking about celebrity use of Twitter and focusing on that as the model of use. But he then plunges head-first into the pit beyond, the one marked "misunderstands conversation as publication". And that, in the simplest terms, is how and why so many journalists misunderstand so much of social media. The look at the work "media" and think publication, without thinking how important the adjectival use of "social" is in that context. For all its horrible buzzword connotations, there is real meaning behind the term social media, if only the people who decry it for its shallowness would pause for a few moments to think it through. But then, perhaps they're handicapped. Having spent decades doing nothing but publishing, the idea that conversation might happen in text form appears to be a mite challenging for them.
Still, if the "social networking is shallow" meme has hit Heffer, it's probably all but played out in traditional media. And you never know, in five years or so, he might be writing compelling interviews with its major practitioner, just as he did a few weeks back with Tina Brown and the Daily Beast, a news site which clearly has its origins in the blogging age.
(I'd just like to say a quick thank you to Ian Douglas of the Telegraph Media Group, who dropped me an e-mail with a link to the Tina Brown interview, after I complained on Twitter about its lack of an online presence a few days after it was published in the dead tree edition.)
How great that Simon Heffer says, regarding social networking: "Just think of all the books I could read, or conversations I could have, with all those hours instead."
Yes, because the major problem with social media is that is stops us all having conversations (or indeed reading anything enlightening)...
another strike for the telegraph, second in as many days after yesterday's article on telegraph.co.uk where the reporter didn't know his arse from his elbow and talked about the digital britain report. He obviously didn't know the difference between a bit and a byte, and a 2 megabit USO is vastly different to a 2 megabyte one... who pays these eejits?
This news is a real shame. I had been developing a new respect for The Telegraph after reading about some of their digital extensions such as an iPhone app and blogs. However, if one of their lead columnists is not prepared to embrace innovation such as Twitter, then all the technology and extensions they care to employ are contradictory to what they are publishing.
Yes JD it can do, but it is just another tool, and anyone involved in the media would do well to embrace the tools rather than ignoring them, time marches on. Perhaps it would all be better if we went back to the quill?
I think all newspapers should have an online presence and possibly a Twitter account. I am more interested in reading news online than in the paper or on Twitter. I think that if you are not on Twitter by now, don't even try. Regards!
I was aiming for sarcasm with my previous comment... looks like I may have missed the target!