Falling Standard (s)
The Evening Standard has a long-standing reputation for being conservative (with a big and small c) so it should not come as a surprise that it has published an article denouncing Twitter.
For the uninitiated, Twitter is a micro-blogging service, similar in some ways to Facebook in that it lets you see the status of your followers (friends, colleagues, acquaintances, associates, etc). It is strangely addictive, hugely useful (I got my current job via Twitter) and I have made a whole host of new friends using it.
A number of journalists from the Financial Times, The Guardian and the BBC already use it, so I was initially delighted to see a piece on it in The Evening Standard today, which I presumed would be extolling the virtues of Twitter. How wrong I was.
The journalist didn’t like Twitter - fair enough, perhaps its not for everyone - but wrote such a curmudgeonly piece he came across as both the worst kind of luddite AND a right old misery-guts. He undermined any legitimate points he may have had by making errors in his copy that a few minutes researching (maybe even using the new-fangled interweb thingy) would have picked up. Twitter allows you 140 characters to make your update, NOT 160 for example.
Twitter users are passionate about it and for many it has become an essential part of work and play. I would expect a pretty frenzied response from the Twitterati to this although at the time of writing the article has just two comments on it. I’m guessing it will be through the roof by the time I get in tomorrow.
FAIL!
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Comments (6)
December 1st, 2008 at 2:08 pm Posted by darius
i always wondered how getting a job via twitter worked. good on ya!
December 2nd, 2008 at 4:25 am Posted by PaulieA
Thanks! I make quite a good little case study for recruitment 2.0 (if you’ll excuse the gratuitus use of ‘2.0′!)
December 3rd, 2008 at 5:04 am Posted by Becky McMichael
agree agree agree
I commented. Made my blood boil.
December 3rd, 2008 at 6:01 am Posted by PaulieA
Apparently they were editing comments….very naughty. although not unlike the Standard to be a little behind the times, its quite a strange paper in many ways.
December 4th, 2008 at 6:32 am Posted by Becky McMichael
Have you seen the comments that have mounted up?
It is funny, a lot of journalists on there too saying the piece is tosh. Shame he wasted the opp to inform so many people (who could be a prime audience for twitter) what its uses and benefits are though. That said, in PR terms I reckon this piece has probably done more for raising the profile of Twitter than a “use it, it’s good” piece would have done due to the debate and comments it has created.
The very witty piece from @paulcarr in The Guardian yesterday summarises it perfectly for me:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/dec/03/twitter-oscar-wilde-stephen-fry
December 4th, 2008 at 6:39 am Posted by PaulieA
there has been a lot of main stream chatter about Twitter since Nick’s piece.
Article in the Indie on Tuesday was less scathing than the Standard but still not entirely positive
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/thomas-sutcliffe/tom-sutcliffe-twittering-on-is-not-the-way-to-provide-news-1047115.html
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