Twenty years ago, writing a letter to a high profile broadcaster, you would not expect a reply for weeks or even months. But these days it seems that all we need is an email address and we are guaranteed an instant reply. By logging onto social networking site Twitter, every average Joe and Jane around the world can have direct access to communication with anyone ranging from colleagues and peers, to Oscar winning actors, straight through to academic elites.
Twitter, originally created to be used for the business world, has recently been adopted by media broadcasters and journalists globally. With the ability to reach users on such a large scale, Twitter has broken the bridge between the broadcaster and listener as it creates an intimate system for correspondence. Twitter enables journalists to receive current news on an international level by simply clicking the ‘follow’ link on publication pages such as the New York Times Twitter page. Local Australian journalists and members of the general public access the articles within seconds of the online posting.
The phenomenon of Twitter has expanded rapidly in Australia, from recent articles featured in Sydney’s MX Newspaper on page 3 with regular “In a Twitter” section being added, to the high profile 2day fm radio broadcaster Jackie O, shifting her normal round of ‘O news,’ to 'Twitter round of O news.’
So intrigued by the constant message updates, better known as “tweets,” a tweet was instigated between myself and Jackie O, requesting an interview regarding Twitter’s influence on the media industry. Within two short minutes, the notification of a direct message was flashing upon my computer screen. Jackie O herself had replied to my request, agreeing to give me an interview and attaching her personal assistants details in order to make a formal appointment.
Marshall Kirkpatrick, the lead writer of ReadWriteWeb.com, which provides high quality web technology news blogs, reports after researching the use of Twitter: “We've also found lately though that Twitter itself is very useful for performing public interviews. By putting out single or multiple questions into our Twitter networks in a call-and-response fashion, we've gathered piles of rich research in far less time than it would have taken to try and call people on the phone.”
Jackie O admits she uses Twitter daily: “I’d probably do a couple posts myself and look at it 4 or 5 times on average.” She also admits she is dependant on Twitter in regards to her work: “I think in a way it is great in terms of my work, it creates more stories and content on air because you have that direct access to celebrities that you normally wouldn’t have.”
Limited to just 140 characters, each post is sent directly to the main page of each user ready for them to view it each time they have signed in. Depending on how many people you are ‘following’ the updates change within seconds, specifically with the pages of news publications
"I think that’s actually what’s really good about it… it’s straight to the point the fact that it’s limited, so simple to go through and so quick it’s just that immediacy I am able to go through every reply as opposed to email," says O.
As one half of Australia’s number one radio show, Kyle and Jackie O, she finds Twitter quite resourceful, and not just for the medium of radio, stating “I’ve noticed a lot of people in the media use Twitter for their work, you have these magazines posting intimate photos of them (celebrities) and their children, which you would normally have to pay big money for” she agrees other forms of media have taken advantage of the Twitter phenomenon. “It’s a great way for the media as a whole to utilize that.”
“For us it’s fantastic, not only are we able to see what the stars are doing, we are able to use that on the show but also we are able to communicate directly to the listeners of the show they write to us and tell us what they do and don’t like.” O has taken advantage of all the services Twitter offers not only is she using it as a source of research for the shows content but utilizing it to receive immediate feedback from listeners.
Kirkpatrick has also utilized Twitter as a direct system for feedback: “I'm not ashamed to admit that I do QA via Twitter. We often get feedback on misspellings, missed links and other publishing faux pas very quickly via Twitter. It's an easy way for readers to offer quick feedback.”
Kirkpatrick insists his Twitter followers are quite thorough in their responses: “Some Twitter users reply to our questions with single line answers, others with a few tweets in a row and still others send us paragraphs by email when they see we've asked an interesting question.”
Kirkpatrick did an interview on the BBC last week with traditional journalists about Twitter and relates how “They scoffed at the idea that it could be useful. ‘Well,’ one said after I talked about how we've used it, ‘I certainly won't be checking it out.’ Hmph!” Kirkpatrick insisted: “The scoffers can scoff all they want, but here at RWW our use of Twitter so far has included the discovery of breaking stories, performing interviews, quality assurance and promotion of our work.”
O encourages use of the site: "It’s a very bizarre concept…It has changed the way we worked I feel like we can be more immediate and I guess have that direct contact with the people that listen to our show."
With reference to her recent O News segment based on recent tweets viewed Jackie stated: “It gave me so much material to have a whole round of O news dedicated towards it. I could probably use it everyday and there would be more content for us. “
Twitter is acting as a revolutionary tool for journalists and broadcasting media in general, "It is a new way for journalists to keep tabs on people and to come up with stories,” says O.
“All of the journalists seem to be on it all following people giving them content that they have never had before and it is reliable too because, its literally coming straight from them, so there’s no room for embellishing, because we are all seeing what they have written so its not like they can kind of change the story or embellish on it because we will pull them up on it.”
“It is quite amazing that has been there for over two years over the past yr it has just exploded! I have a feeling that it is a bit of a trend I’m predicting within three years, the fad will start to die out, I doubt whether in ten years from now that twitter will actually be as big as it is now.”