to twitter where no one has twittered before

The PG's Brian O. has an honest column over the weekend on his views about modern communications, in particular his aversion to Twitter. The only active twitter feed I am aware of coming from a local journalist is Bob Mayo's, but I suspect there are others?

Kudos for honesty and his insight that PG management is encouraging the use of twitter. That in itself represents a sea change in perspective on the state of the world from what has been typical of the PG in the past. I still can't help but remember Tony N's very public confoundedness sending the lawyers after the evil commenters of the Internet. I ranted on that once, but honestly his column speaks for itself. Not to just poke at the PG, I still am a bit speechless at Mike S's column a few months ago in the Trib decrying the impact of blogging. I wish I could just write that off as an outlier, but I know first hand that Mike's thoughts are shared in one form or another by more than a few other local print journalists.


This isn't meant to be as harsh as it comes across, but Brian's piece may have summed up the entire problem the newspaper industry has connecting with potential younger readers. There is news/research out recently that: More Than Half of Voters Used Internet for Election News. Newspapers are for sure not the only industry having a problem relating to younger generations. An image I swiped from a Navy presentation once is really telling. Take a look at a snapshot of The Youth of Tomorrow. If you look at this slide and say 'wow' or even 'interesting' you are in trouble. Many would look at it and be unimpressed with how little new insight it gives. Imagine a presentation in the 1970's telling marketers that TV was becoming a major source of news. The sad truth is there is nothing 'tomorrow' about that slide, it is already the youth of yesterday in several ways. Nonetheless, that slide lays out newspapers' future audience if they want to survive the passing of the rotary phone generation.

But back to twitter which is here whether we like it or not. Might even be already past its prime and the question is what comes next? How important is Twitter? There are some great examples of the power of twitter. More than one journalist owes their freedom to twitter. Hopefully that is not a concern for Brian's beat here in Pittsburgh, but still. There is help. From our friends across the pond: How to: master Twitter, if you're a journalist.

Finally, Brian mentions he himself is of the rotary phone generation sort of. There was a time when even that was a scary new technology. Times change via one of my favorite YouTube clips:

Maybe we can take Brian to a new corner of the Internet world. Think he has ever posted a comment on a blog post? Hint. :-)