Why newspapers should be Twitter-happy

Posted by Gida Hammami on June 8, 2009 at 10:00 AM

Online pioneer and blogger Dave Winer does not view his blog posts as 'published' until he has sent a link to them on Twitter. He describes in his blog Scripting.com how 'Tweeting' has become an integral part of his routine: "I've been posting links to new blog posts on Twitter since I started using it two years ago. It's just a natural thing, another step in the publishing process."

Essentially, he is encouraging newspapers, writers and bloggers alike to be Twitter junkies. In other words, one must litter the Twitter airways in 140 characters or less with news about a story they have published for it to be really considered 'published'. How else would you direct readers to your content if you do not broadcast it on Twitter?

Winer suggests that in effect this means that "Twitter has become the newspaper of record" and therefore in a few years time "what's left of the news industry" might be calling Twitter a parasite and trying to demand royalties in a confrontation that would echo the current conflict between publishers and Google. Winer's regret is that it's "too bad they don't see this coming, and create an even better news system built around the principles of Twitter and instead of asking for alms they'd get a piece of the PE."

Source: mediamanager.com, scripting.com