Isn’t it Ironic
If you’ve read this blog from the beginning, you know that I came kicking and screaming into the world of social media. But even if you’re new to this site, you can tell by my ‘Antibloggergirldc’ nom de plume that I’m not the first choice to appear on the poster advocating blogging, Facebook, Twitter and the like.
So it is with a tip of the hat to my Georgetown instructors, Garrett Graff and Kathy Baird for a job well done. At least according to my friends, who now describe me as a “fanatic” when it comes to all things social media. On a recent visit to my Southern California hometown, I spent a relaxing evening with six long-time friends. Each of these women is successful in her career: an emergency room nurse, a technology entrepreneur, a neurologist, an elementary school teacher, an advertising executive and a banker. Only one of them had an active Facebook page. Three of them had briefly flirted with Facebook, but none of them had a blog or posted on Twitter. A few had profiles on Linkedin.
Sounding like I was born-again or had drunk the social media Kool-Aid, I regaled them with the wonders and benefits of keeping your friends informed through tweets and status updates. I must have been convincing. Three of the six are now twittering, all but one is actively on Facebook, a couple more have filled out Linkedin profiles and one even started a MySpace page.
Who says social media is just for the 20-somethings?
Travels with Facebook
Who needs Conde Nast’s Traveller magazine or even Travel + Leisure when you have friends on Facebook?
Traditionally, August is the last chance for a summer vacation, and many of my pals and colleagues have left behind their day jobs but not their internet connections. Even those who rarely update their Facebook status are now sending missives from airports, beaches, ballparks and museums. Kicking back and relaxing now includes letting your closest circle of friends–and their friends–know just how you like to kick back and relax and where you are doing it.
Instead of peeking at the latest issues of travel magazines for hip destinations, I can log onto Facebook and read about the beautiful Mexican sky, the glorious weather on Florida’s beaches and the delicious local delicacies in Cabo San Lucas. I can read about kayaking trips, which beer gets the highest ratings, who has discovered a new singer and the stadiums with the best concessions. Sometimes there are pictures that accompany the posts.
With the high cost of gasoline and the long security lines at airports, maybe Facebook travelogues will become the new armchair travel destination.
Twitter is Addicting
I have a new obsession. Forget checking email, voicemail or Facebook status updates. I want to know what is happening on Twitter.
I’m not continually checking tweets to see who you had lunch with, or where you’re going on vacation. I’m only mildly curious if you had an unusual street encounter, but not terribly interested in what your boss said at the meeting that lasted way too long. And I don’t care what you bought at the grocery store.
Instead, I’m hooked on the endless updates from traditional news outlets such as CNN and The New York Times. I’m fascinated by their embrace of social media. I can’t get enough: Google World News, WSJ, and The Today Show’s tweets from Beijing. For a former reporter, it’s a new, wonderful way to stay abreast of local, national and world news. And with a simple click, I can just as easily choose not to follow ‘what are you doing?’
I also get a kick out of the politicians who are tweeting. At first I just followed Obama, intrigued to see how his groundbreaking campaign would use this particular digital strategy. But then I became curious and wanted to see what the Clintons — both Hillary and Bill — were tweeting about. And, after Friday, I decided it could be interesting to follow John Edwards.
I am now a constant source of useful — or useless — information. I know what is happening in Georgia and I know what is happening on Capitol Hill. I even know what you ordered for lunch at that new restaurant everyone’s been dying to try. Sometimes it is too much information. Sometimes, not enough. Twitterers have to be very resourceful with the 140-character limit.
You know what I like best? Following tweets is easier than clicking through online versions of each newspaper or website. As for the hard copies I still have delivered to my front door? The day may soon come when I choose Twitter over newsprint-stained hands.
Will Twitter Move Markets?
Is Twitter the next wire service, those news agencies long associated with breaking news pre-Internet?
A February post on ReadWriteWeb tells about Twitter breaking news of a UK earthquake long before traditional media outlets were reporting. Robert Scoble did the same for the China earthquake earlier this year, and most recently, the July 29th earthquake in California was the subject of tweets while the Golden State was still shaking.
Early in my reporting career I worked for United Press International. When I would telephone an editor back in the bureau to dictate my story (in prehistoric 1978), the first question always asked: “Was AP (my chief competitor, the Associated Press) there?” Years later, working in the Washington, D.C. bureau of a financial wire service in the pre-cellphone days, my competitors and I would race for one of the few pay telephones stationed in the House or Senate office buildings when the chairman of the Federal Reserve answered a question during testimony that had the ability to move the financial markets.
When reporters started carrying cellphones and cameras were allowed into hearings and briefings, every comment, every answer, every statement had the ability to make news. Citizen journalists, bloggers and live television feeds have changed the landscape yet again.
And now Twitter is posed to change the speed that information is shared, or how news is broken or made. Just this past Friday, two congressmen spread the word about the GOP energy protest through their Twitter micro-blogs.
When stock, bond and commodity traders start tweeting, financial reporters may run to their Twitter accounts rather than a cellphone or a laptop to break the news.
