Twitter offers convenience, possible danger
William Hoyt
Issue date: 9/4/09 Section: OpEd Page
If you were to ask me last fall what a tweet was, I would have told you it was the sound those cartoon bluebirds produce as they buzz about, hanging Cinderella's laundry. This summer, however, as part of my job doing advertising for a Kansas City museum, I quickly became familiar with the act and the vast cyber world that accompanies it.
At first, I was skeptical. With all popular culture phenomena that have occurred in the past four years, it seems I have always been six months behind. Leona Lewis's "Bleeding Love?" Great song. But by the time I had started listening to it last winter, people's ears were bleeding from it being overplayed. In fact, it seems the only pop culture trends I have been ahead of are flannel and vampire movies.
This time, at the urging of my employer, it was going to be different. Much like the experience a literary fan has when they first pick up a Hemingway novel, I quickly realized the incredibly potent capabilities of short sentences. Within days I was connected to more than 50 institutions and individuals who, with little effort, were receiving event updates and links to my museum's Web site pages. Inversely, I was receiving real time updates from newspapers, traffic information and random bits of information from hundreds of people in whom I was moderately interested.
For the first time I realized the tremendous impact Twitter has had not only on the social world, but on the business and non-profit sector as well. In essence, the success of Twitter and other microblogging sites has dealt one of the finishing blows to the traditional press release that once dominated the world of PR and advertising. Now, instead of businesses sending costly printed press releases to news publications in hopes of getting published, they can send a single sentence with a link to thousands of publications with the click of a button.
Because of these advantages, Twitter has fast become one of the world's most widely used social media, gaining both high usership and high praise along the way. Benjamin Akande, dean of Webster's School of Business and Technology, called co-founder Jack Dorsey's Twitter, "The Gutenberg press and Bell telephone of our generation," in an article on PR Newswire. In Twitter's case, instead of spreading thousands of copies of Martin Luther's "95 Theses," millions of users are posting 140 characters.
At first, I was skeptical. With all popular culture phenomena that have occurred in the past four years, it seems I have always been six months behind. Leona Lewis's "Bleeding Love?" Great song. But by the time I had started listening to it last winter, people's ears were bleeding from it being overplayed. In fact, it seems the only pop culture trends I have been ahead of are flannel and vampire movies.
This time, at the urging of my employer, it was going to be different. Much like the experience a literary fan has when they first pick up a Hemingway novel, I quickly realized the incredibly potent capabilities of short sentences. Within days I was connected to more than 50 institutions and individuals who, with little effort, were receiving event updates and links to my museum's Web site pages. Inversely, I was receiving real time updates from newspapers, traffic information and random bits of information from hundreds of people in whom I was moderately interested.
For the first time I realized the tremendous impact Twitter has had not only on the social world, but on the business and non-profit sector as well. In essence, the success of Twitter and other microblogging sites has dealt one of the finishing blows to the traditional press release that once dominated the world of PR and advertising. Now, instead of businesses sending costly printed press releases to news publications in hopes of getting published, they can send a single sentence with a link to thousands of publications with the click of a button.
Because of these advantages, Twitter has fast become one of the world's most widely used social media, gaining both high usership and high praise along the way. Benjamin Akande, dean of Webster's School of Business and Technology, called co-founder Jack Dorsey's Twitter, "The Gutenberg press and Bell telephone of our generation," in an article on PR Newswire. In Twitter's case, instead of spreading thousands of copies of Martin Luther's "95 Theses," millions of users are posting 140 characters.
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
Barbara Kreuzer
posted 9/06/09 @ 4:41 PM EST
Finally, I have learned about what Twitter is - and William Hoyt presented it in such a balanced way, taking away possible fears but asking for caution at the same time. (Continued…)
rebal
rebal
posted 9/07/09 @ 5:36 PM EST
With the twitter op-ed, The Miami Student is off to a great start. We look forward to many more such entertaining, well-written, and insightful articles in the year ahead. (Continued…)
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