Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Twitter

I can distinctly remember sitting in class Freshman year and the professor asked us if anyone had heard of two new websites that were just beginning to gain popularity. The first one was Second Life and the other Twitter. One or two people raised their hand for Second Life but no one had heard of Twitter. This was just three years ago and the majority of the class agreed that they saw no potential in this new site with the odd name. For most of the class, the need to post status updates was already satisfied by Facebook and there was no need for a new site. How wrong the class was!!
What is most striking to me about Twitter is its link to older media. Other forms of media, such as television or print actually report on Twitter and people's post. Often on television the broadcaster will show the latest photos posted on Twitter from their favorite subscriber or point out the day's best Tweets. Popular magazines often have pages devoted to pairing celebrities with their usernames and Tweets. There are even feuds between subscribers that are watched carefully by older media and reported on as though they are occurring face to face. When going through these older media I fail to see such in dept reporting on happenings that occur on Faceboook or Myspace or any other popular site. Twitter seems to be its own world that has its own events that get reported on as though they occur on another planet.

1 comment:

  1. Excellent point, Mariel. One of the key functions that Twitter seems to serve is the coordination of other media, old, new, and new new.

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