Mathew's comments - Latest Comments in Twitter: The first draft of history?

Re: Twitter: The first draft of history?

Dental Assistant — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 00:12:50 -0000

It would be too stinky if this happened on myspace, because of the social caste of tech. Would you consider updating your post with a link to the redcross, and encouraging your readers to donate? would be great, we can actually make a difference.

Re: Twitter: The first draft of history?

Eric Schwartzman — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 13:28:56 -0000

Mathew,

Rather than improving the accuracy of the first draft, perhaps the value daily news media brings is analysis and perspective? It seems as though the daily news business has no choice but to forfeit the breaking news cycle to citizen journalism and focus on what they do best: Retrospective, fact checked news produced with editorial oversight and group consensus. But with advertisers defecting MSM for UGM, the questions remains, how do newspapers stay solvent enough to pull it off?

I'd really like to set up a time to discuss these issues with you for my podcast. How about sometime next week?

Eric Schwartzman
DM me @ericschwartzman

Re: Twitter: The first draft of history?

mathewi — Tue, 13 May 2008 21:59:03 -0000

Thanks, Jessica. I'd be interested in seeing your dissertation when
you're done.

Re: Twitter: The first draft of history?

Jessica Barlow — Tue, 13 May 2008 18:40:00 -0000

I am writing a dissertation on the effects of citizen journalism and how online technologies (myspace, facebook, blogger, wordpress and twitter) are affecting the production of online news.

In response to the issues about myspace not being monitored I recently watched the UK earthquake unfold infront of my eyes.

On experiencing the earthquake I logged onto google and frantically searched to what was going on, nothing was returned from reuters, bbc or sky news.

Then bulletins popped up from my myspace friends, with location, epicentre, effects etc etc, with comment following on for about half an hour, until reuters and the mainstream press had broken the news.

I have later learnt that this was first broken on twitter and not myspace, soes anyone have the link to the twitter that broke the news of the UK earthquake?

Great blog Mathew.

Re: Twitter: The first draft of history?

ericrice — Tue, 13 May 2008 18:17:05 -0000

I'm digging, but there are challenges... What percentage of 'reporting' is
done in Chinese vs. English; what percentage is done on myspace.com vs.
myspace.cn--- is the whole story based the English-speaking side of the
population?

But seriously, why am I even bothering? It's too late for it to matter and
our chamber of echoes is blinded to the digging. Let it run its course so we
can move onto the next thing.

Re: Twitter: The first draft of history?

mathewi — Tue, 13 May 2008 18:05:03 -0000

Eric, if you can find me any evidence of something similar happening
through MySpace, I'd be happy to write about it.

Re: Twitter: The first draft of history?

ericrice — Tue, 13 May 2008 18:00:02 -0000

It would be too stinky if this happened on myspace, because of the social caste of tech. It probably DID happen on myspace, but who is watching? Aren't the tech blogospheres *better* than it? /smirk

Re: Twitter: The first draft of history?

mathewi — Tue, 13 May 2008 15:57:59 -0000

Yes, he broke the news -- which he found out about via Twitter

Re: Twitter: The first draft of history?

Rod Trent — Tue, 13 May 2008 13:56:40 -0000

Nah...Scoble broke the news. http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/rtrent/archive/2...

Re: Twitter: The first draft of history?

Jeremiah Owyang — Tue, 13 May 2008 13:10:18 -0000

Matt

I agree, there are some powerful positive outputs to this.

I recently donated to the Red Cross and blogged it, so far, three others have donated, directly or indirectly of my evangelism

Would you consider updating your post with a link to the redcross, and encouraging your readers to donate? would be great, we can actually make a difference.

Re: Twitter: The first draft of history?

antje wilsch — Mon, 12 May 2008 21:54:25 -0000

the internet vs. twitter? :) Hardly on the same planet IMHO. More like facebook vs. Twitter.

For journalists, I totally see it. Bloggers too. But others.... - most of the stuff that comes through:
a) is referring to someone to whose twitter account I'm NOT following so I hae no idea what the person is referring to
b) obscure references to articles i"ve not yet read
c) too short to often make sense
d) boring (farts, naps and 'where are you you' posts as stated above)

Re: Twitter: The first draft of history?

mathewi — Mon, 12 May 2008 21:19:02 -0000

Thanks for the comment, Michelle. I guess like any tool, Twitter is
what you make of it.

Re: Twitter: The first draft of history?

Michelle Gartner — Mon, 12 May 2008 21:13:45 -0000

Followed your interview over from Broadcasting Brain. Just this week it seems my eyes are being opened to real applications of Twitter. I see so many A lister bloggers and bloggers higher in the blog food chain writing on Twitter, but haven't gained anything of value from their posts, until now. I can really see how a journalist could use Twitter to an extraordinary advantage- even your post title makes it very clearly. Now the scales have fallen from my eyes and I can see what I thought was a droll little tool (I do use it for blog updating) could be so very useful.

Re: Twitter: The first draft of history?

mathewi — Mon, 12 May 2008 20:29:03 -0000

There's no question that Twitter users are "edge cases" Antje -- but I
think Twitter is a little more than a time-wasting jumble, or at least
it can be. I can remember not all that long ago people were saying
the same things about the Internet.

Re: Twitter: The first draft of history?

antje wilsch — Mon, 12 May 2008 20:07:54 -0000

Am I the only person who is tired of every "A List" blogger talking about Twitter? Not one person outside my technology bubble has ever even heard of it..... :( The most posts about it, the more I feel it's this exclusive club of cacaphony.... just saying. It's great you guys are all early adopters and maybe it's totally disruptive but to me it's just a time wasting jumble of people talking about their farts or where they are (at the drive in now, listening to the radio, had a thought!)