Twitter

-- AP Stylebook

Introduction to Twitter for JournalistsKnoxville News SentinelJack Lail / Director of News InnovationApril 29, 2009

http://twitter.com/radiomanmic/status/1644017226

Twitter was formed only 2006, a side project of a company whose main business was podcasting.

The founders are Jack Dorsey, 32, Biz Stone, 36, and Evan Williams, 37.

It exploded on the scene at Austin Texas’ South by Southwest Festival (SXSW).

A February 2009 Compete.com blog entry ranks Twitter as the third most used social network (Facebook being the largest, followed by MySpace), which puts the number of unique monthly visitors at roughly 6 million and the number of monthly visits at 55 million. In March 2009, a Nielsen.com blog ranked Twitter as the fastest growing site in the Member Communities category for February 2009. Twitter had a growth of 1382%. – Wikipedia

Biz Stone

"Twitter has enjoyed a nice ride over the last few months, but it will not be able to sustain its meteoric rise without establishing a higher level of user loyalty. Frankly, if Oprah can’t accomplish that, I'm not sure who can.“

-- David Martin, vice president of primary research at Nielsen Online

(Twitter was the fastest growing internet property in March with 9.3 million visitors.)

Twitter is simple.

Twitter is immediate.

Twitter is mobile.

Twitter has indie developers.

Twitter has search.

You could substitute twitter with anything from trying RSS feeds, Plurk, Qik or starting a blog. Whatever it is you have to engage and you have to engage for yourself. If you don’t engage, you aren’t punishing your employer, you are limiting yourself. -- Andy Dickinson

Why journalists should use it

• Communication tool

• Source for news stories

• A breaking news platform

• One more place to publish content

• A way to grow audience for a blog or coverage

The plane hit the Hudson River about 3:31 p.m.

http://twitpic.com/135xa

Live blogging the county budget. She had several Tweets on the county budget.

http://mashable.com/2009/04/23/chicago-tribune/

Twitter is push for audienceTop traffic sources for jacklail.com (April/09)

• Pajamasmedia• Google• Direct• Google Images• Twitter• Facebook

A Handful of Twitter Tools

• Twitter Search • Hashtags.org , Tweetmeme, Tweetscan,

Monitter

• Twitterfeed

• Bit.ly, Tinyurl• Twellow, Twitter’s People Search• Twitterberry, Tweetie for iPhone

More Twitter Tools

• Twitpic, Twitxr• Mr. Tweet, FriendorFollow, Qwitter• Muck Rack

• TweetStats

• Tweetdeck, Twhirl, Twitterific• Twittords• Twittervision

Posting as @knoxnews to Twitter using Publish2 and Twitterfeed.

Additional Resources

• MediaShift: Twitter Helps with Reporting, Filtering the News

• AJR: All the News That's Fit to Tweet • Amy Gahran: Twitter Basics for Journalists &

Recovering Journos• Tom Cheredar: How should Newspapers use Twitter?• Monica Guzman: Twitter to journalists: Here’s how

it’s done• Jack Lail’s Delicious links tagged “twitter”