I’ve been on Twitter for — I don’t know — six or seven months now. Can’t see much use for it and, frankly, in terms of the time and bandwidth I’m wasting, it ain’t worth it. So i’m de-Twittering or un-Twittering. I will be an ex-Tweeter.
Reason? Basically, there’s nothing I’m getting from the Twitter folks I follow that I can’t get in person, via e-mail, via RSS or via the good old-fashioned phone.
You may have a different Twitter experience, of course, and I’m not saying Twitter is bad. For journalists, Twitter, had its one shining moment, so far as I can tell, during the Mumbai terrorist attacks. (I’ve heard there were lots of cool Tweets as that Airbus landed on the Hudson river.)
But as party of my daily/hourly digital toolbox and with more and more tools showing up on the Internet, I think you’ve got to make some decisions about what’s useful and why. Digg, for example, seems like a useful tool for newsroom managers and assignment editors but for the blue-collar grunts like me out there pounding the digital pavement, Digg, Twitter, and services like it are just time-wasters.
The social software tools I find valuable for the work I do are Facebook and Google Reader. I’m a big Google Notebook fan as well. Notebook is “share-able” but I tend to keep all my Notebook stuff private cuz that’s where tidbits for the scoops I’m working on end up.
E-mail — so ubiquitous now that its value is overlooked — remains the all-time killer app for a reporter, if you ask me. Web browsers are a close second but e-mail lets you reach out, get personal, stay anonymous if you need to, and can be your conduit to file to your desk and the wider world. Plain-text e-mail works on every hardware platform and every bandwidth situation. (And I’ve reported from spots where the story was getting out at 1200 baud ! ) The Web, of course, is a wonderful Internet application for journalists but content coming and going via HTTP can be a bandwidth hog and the browser that will interpret all that content will vary considerably on different hardware platforms. Of course, we don’t think about bandwidth or platforms nowadays when we’re using the PC in our office which is connected to somebody’s 802.11n WLAN.
But back to Twitter. When I signed up for a Twitter account I couldn’t, to be honest, envision how it might make me a better reporter but I had faith that, like a lot of other online tools I’ve used since I downloaded Netscape’s Mosaic in 1994, its value as tool to help me improve the quality, efficiency, or scope of my newsgathering.
Unlike Facebook, where I’m approaching 1,000 friends (many personal but most professional), I thought I’d restrict my Twitter “Follows” to key or frequently used sources — political operators like Jack Layton or Gilles Duceppe or folks with expertise, like Michael Geist or Jim Carroll, that I’ve called upon many times over the years to help with my stories. I also included a few digital-savvy journalists in my follow list. I vowed not to clutter up my “Follow” list with personal friends or those folks who I didn’t already have a working professional relationship with.
Now one of those journalists who I’ve following on Twitter is my friend and former boss Kirk Lapointe. Kirk’s assignment right now is at the Vancouver Sun where he’s the managing editor. Ever since I first worked for him back at The Hamilton Spectator in 1996, I’ve known Kirk to keep an eye on the future. Over the last few months, I’ve admired the commitment he has made to Twitter. He sees something there and the Twitterverse is definitely richer for him being in it. But you know what? The real interesting stuff from Kirk I find in his newspaper or his blog. Is there “must-have” unique content from Kirk or any of the others I’m following on Twitter? Nope. [I single Kirk out here, not because I disagree with him. In fact, I think he and I agree on a whole pile of things when it comes to our brave new digital world and journalism.]
So aside from the fact that I just found nothing on Twitter that made me a better, faster, reporter — what else is it that’s bugging me? Search.
Search, for a reporter, is a must-have. In fact, the lack of decent search within Facebook is one of things which may eventually drive me from that club. On the other hand, one of the things I love about Facebook is the photos of young political staffers who-want-to-be-cabinet-ministers doing crazy, drunk things while they let other people take pictures. I’m collecting all those photos and, believe me, the dirty-tricks operatives at Liberal and Conservative research groups are doing the same thing. But I digress …
How is search valuable? Today, for example, as we were reporting on the issue of U.S. protectionism, we needed to know, on deadline (i.e. within about 5 minutes) what percentage of steel made in Canada gets exported to the U.S. I had the answer within that five minute window because I’ve set up my digital world to answer that question. Here’s how: First, I’m running Google Desktop so that all the stuff on my local machine and local servers gets the Google index treatment. I know there are other search engines out there but, I’m sorry, Google is still king.
Next: Everything I touch on the Web and every piece of e-mail and paper I get ends up in digital form on my drive. I do lots of ATI requests and every one I get is digitized and then run through the OCR function in Adobe Acrobat. Google gobbles it up.
So today, on deadline, I’m a keystroke to Google Desktop, type in “steel canada exports u.s.” and, presto, up pops a briefing note the Department of Finance prepared for a meeting Jim Flaherty had with a CEO from a Canadian steel company. In the briefing note? You guessed it. Finance department officials say Canada exports about 40 per cent of all steel made in the country, 90 per cent of which goes to the U.S.
That’s the power of search for a journalist on deadline. Twitter’s search capabilities are far too rigid (Find people using twittername, lastname or firstname. That’s it. I can’t easily or with precisely search my own tweets, my follower’s tweets, or my followee’s tweets.
Google Reader is my preferred RSS reader for the same reason I like Google Desktop. I can search with a good deal of precision through all the content I’ve ever received through RSS. Can’t do that with Bloglines which I used to use.
So there you go: So long Twitter and good luck! I’ll keep the account open just in case there’s another Mumbai moment but I suspect I’ve tweeted my last.
To those I’ve been following via Twitter: I’ll see you at other digital hangouts. To those who’ve been following my Tweets: You can find me right here.
Technorati Tags: digital politics, e-democracy, facebook, internet, journalism, facebook, social software, twitter
That's too bad. I hope you come back. I was alerted to your post on Kahdr as a result of your twitter feed, and I retweeted it. I am guessing that is just one instance where a somewhat larger circle of readers has been exposed to your excellent and timely observations. Maybe that doesn't matter to you…
I also think that twitter allows for greater and more immediate feedback from your audience. It took me several minutes (and more than one attempt!) to sign up for an account to post this comment, for instance, and more minutes to compose this long-form message. Of course, feedback can be negative… but I would think that being a journalist without (as much of) it can be isolating.
I am happy to see someone finally come to his sense about Twitter. Twitter has become a disease. Who needs a lousy 140 character messages?
Most blogs produce too little original content as is. With Twitter, some blogs have gone totally twitty, where the blog serves merely as an aggregator of the blog authors various tweets.
I have an account there, and tweeted maybe about ten to twenty times (because that was the only way of communicating with the guys at Blogrolling.com, which is still on the fritz months later, by the way), but I don't plan on using it again.
Twitter is useful when used in conjunction with Twitter applications. It's also good for driving up blog traffic. Maybe you could stream your blog updates through twitterfeed.
As I said in my post, my account will be up but I really won't be playing with it much. And, as it will still be up, the automatic stuff will continue on — including those blog alerts.
As for the feedback side of things: You make a good point, Gillian. That's something I'll have to consider. That said: I've had all of seven direct messages in seven months and maybe 50 @ replies in the same period. Again: Killer app is e-mail and I get lots of quality feedback that way.
I'll reconsider the setting on this blog, though, that forces commenters to sign up. I did that at first to cut down on the spam in comments. There are now some new tools on this blog that might prevent that.
The subject/title of blog posts will continue to stream through Twitter.
Twitter is a real star when a story breaks (like Mumbai), but beyond that I find it useful for two things: throwing things out to see what gets a reaction (this feeds back into my professional research and consulting work) and seeing what “waves of ideas” flow through it.
On the other hand, it's been a great tool for making people aware of my company!, and this is leading to business. Without explicitly saying “come see me” quality tweets turn into inquiries. Best of all, the marketing cost is extremely low (just a little time).
But NO tool in the kitbag of today's Internet is everything to everyone, and that's the point of them. Use what gives you value. The people who jump up and down and say “you have to be here” miss the point, I think.
Congrats on posting on a subject that could attract a whole heap of flack.
1. Ignatieff twittered: “M_Ignatieff is putting Stephen Harper on probation” 8 minutes before his press conference. Twitter also had the prorogue and the bob rae pull out a few minutes before any web news or tv news agency.
2. You can forward your twitter feed to your google reader.
3. http://search.twitter.com you can search all the public tweets in real time.
From others, I might dismiss this as a rant of someone who doesn't understand, but from you David it takes on a different bent. I think the defining difference might be your BB and how you use it. In my own experience, you are probably the most accessible and responsive reporter on a National level. Your early adoption and acceptance of various means of communication sets you apart from many of your peers. You're inquisitive, knowledgeable and objective on the stories you report on. For the first several months I was using Twitter I too didn't quite grasp the value, until I looked at things from a different perspective. Personally, I'm at #4 and am working towards achieving #5 (http://tinyurl.com/8brseo).
I'm glad to see that you're not dropping Twitter altogether yet, but simply pulling back to reevaluate. It's a medium of NOW in very short form, but considering where your craft may be heading in the near future, being able tap into that stream is what may very well set you apart from your colleagues.
The Twitter time-stamp on Iggy's tweet about probation reads 11:30 am — I remember his press conference — originally scheduled for 11 a.m. started late because of technical difficulties — but did it really start at 11:38? Could have.
In any event, these are all good points in the case for Twitter. Thanks.
Guess the de-twittering didn't take, eh?
Had a bit of a laugh when I stumbled across this post (while searching for your directory of political twits, about which you've tweeted). I only really became a fan and reader after following you on twitter. Guess you reconsidered?
Thank goodness – really appreciate your tweets – especially the spending announcements. Keep up the good work.