Everybody’s doing it

Do you tweet? I just became one of over 10 million visitors who will check the site in the coming month.

And I have to admit that Twitter is a great source of well…anything.  The beauty is that you can follow whomever you choose.  You can get CNN breaking news intermingled with updates on what your friend is making for dinner.  The volume of fellow Tweeters (I’m still learning the vocab) can seem overwhelming at first.  I was excited to find this article advising on a good group of journalists to start following.

I had heard about Twitter earlier but was weary due to the moans and groans of people like Don Campbell.  It’s true, Twitter has the potential to provide boringly thorough updates on your friends.  Yet, you choose who you follow.  In this sense, it can be an invaluable networking tool and an efficiently news delivery system according to your interests. 

I have to disagree to Campbell’s statement that “technology threatens to undermine the foundations of our society.”  The technology is not the problem; rather, the risk lies in its misuse and abuse.

Death of news?

I just read an interesting piece on the death wheeze of the newspaper industry.  I agree with Schonfeld’s generalization that disgruntled workers spent too much time looking for someone to blame when they could have been exploring new innovations.  While I don’t feel overly sympathetic towards the newspapers, I do fear the rising reliance on feeds and “headlines only” news consumption. 

I enjoy reading a well-written story on a regional issue.  Even more, I count on local reporters to follow their beats and blow their metaphorical whistles when the community needs to be informed.  Newspapers provide a public service.  Clearly, that service could easily be continued and improved with the incorporation of Web 2.0 technologies.  The problem is that many of the best examples of these public service require expertise on the issue, a lengthy list of contacts, extensive research and fees for lawyers and public records.   With newspapers dying, who is going to go out and report on the tough stories?  And, more importantly, who is going to pay for them to do it?