Jo Geary: Tweet, Tweet. Why we’re srsly in a twitter about chatting

Jul 3 2008 By Jo Geary

“OMG! WTF?! I am SO blogging that! ROFLMAO! :)”

“O HAI. I am cooking my shirt. Kthxbai!”

“I can haz mushroom? Srsly?”

A quick search through the public timeline of micro-blogging platform Twitter (twitter.com/public_timeline) and it is no wonder the service leaves many dumbfounded.

Not only does it appear to be full of “geekspeak”, but it also has a bit of a silly name.

Yet Twitter, and many other similar services popping up all over the internet, have serious implications. They open up a whole new platform for communication for news organisations and for their readers.

“But what is it?” I hear you cry. It’s a question I’m asked more frequently and it’s not that easy to answer.

Twitter is new. It has similarities to blogging, to text messaging and to online chat. But, by saying just that, it only confuses the issue. So let’s break it down a little further.

Twitter allows you to post small updates about what you are doing to the web – very much like a blog.

Just like a blog, all messages on Twitter are public for all to read, unless you make them private.

But unlike a blog, a message on Twitter (called a tweet) is only 140 characters long. It means they can be sent, or received by text message.

If you want to find out what someone is doing, you can subscribe to their tweets and choose to be updated by visiting the Twitter website, or by receiving the tweet as a text message as well.

But if these two options are not enough, you also can subscribe to Twitter via an instant messaging service – like Google Chat – or by using a whole host of third-party applications, the most popular of which appears to be Twhirl.

So, why would a service such as Twitter be useful to a news organisation?

Well, there are two ways:

Firstly, it allows us to provide a totally free SMS news alert to readers. By subscribing, they can receive SMS updates of breaking news and updates.

The Birmingham Post already provides Twitter alert services for news (twitter.com/birminghampost), business (twitter.com/postbusiness), sport (twitter.com/postsport) and lifestyle (twitter.com/postlifestyle).

Secondly – and this in my opinion is the most exciting aspect of all – it can put journalists and readers in touch with each other. Twitter allows people to respond to tweets using the “@” sign.

So, if a reader gets an update that they want to comment on, they can send a message to @birminghampost – putting them directly in touch with a journalist in the newsroom.

Journalists can use it to build up online contacts and communities. You can talk to us when you have a query about anything that we are doing, and we can ask you for information if an exciting news story breaks.

It certainly helped me during February’s earthquake. I was shaken out of my bed convinced the flat below had blown up. I opened my door and looked around. Nothing. Phoned a friend who had slept through the whole thing. Turned on the radio and TV. Still nothing.

It was only when I got online and checked Twitter did my contacts confirm there had indeed been an earthquake. It is this immediate, public, collaborative and social nature of the Twitter service that makes it so exciting. The service is no longer just home to geeks, it is slowly creeping into the mainstream with organisations. If you don’t believe me, look at Radio 4’s The Today Programme, which is now sending out tweets about its up-and-coming features.

Now, in the fast-paced, innovative digital world, it may not be Twitter that ends as the dominant micro-blogging/SMS service. As I write this, the site is down as its small development team struggle to cope with increasing traffic.

But one thing is for certain, this type of service is here to stay. Srsly.

* For more information related to this column got to del.icio.us/joannageary/column4