Sunday
Mar152009
From Tweet to Article
Sunday, March 15, 2009 at 9:04PM
It may already be known, but I follow Lance Armstrong on twitter - I should say, I am 1 of the 293,587 people following him on twitter. Last week Mr. Armstrong wrote a '128 character' review of the Giro Time Trial stage : here. Whilst browing my feeds this evening I found an article written about Mr. Armstrong's view on the Time Trail stage of the Giro : here.
It struck me that an entire article was taken from a simple 128 character statement. I would hesitate to guess that journalists have been doing this for a long time, but I guess before the internet provided oppertunities like @twitter, that the basis for an article ever came so easily. That is, in the past journalists would have to earn quotes to be the start of a piece like this.
I assume that what ever that is posted on twitter is taken as an official word from that person - if Mr. Armstrong writes something in direct media like this, it is taken as an official comment. And I would also then assume that it is fair game for an article.
So in fact @twitter is like a constant place to find the official word, and that is what makes it a powerful tool.
By the word count here, it would have taken about 10 tweets to actually say this, which is why I took this time to write such a small article. Just hit me at the time I guess.
It struck me that an entire article was taken from a simple 128 character statement. I would hesitate to guess that journalists have been doing this for a long time, but I guess before the internet provided oppertunities like @twitter, that the basis for an article ever came so easily. That is, in the past journalists would have to earn quotes to be the start of a piece like this.
I assume that what ever that is posted on twitter is taken as an official word from that person - if Mr. Armstrong writes something in direct media like this, it is taken as an official comment. And I would also then assume that it is fair game for an article.
So in fact @twitter is like a constant place to find the official word, and that is what makes it a powerful tool.
By the word count here, it would have taken about 10 tweets to actually say this, which is why I took this time to write such a small article. Just hit me at the time I guess.
in Web Programming, giro, journalism, quotes, time trial, twitter
Web Programming, giro, journalism, quotes, time trial, twitter
Reader Comments (2)
You raise a good point. Twitter has, and will continue to have many of these side affects. Search "be careful what you tweet" for more of them (I recently read about potential employers looking at applicants tweets-but can't remember where).
I came across this one today. Makes sence it is a be careful to what you write on twitter.
http://www.sofranko.com/journal/2009/3/18/cisco-fatty-and-a-case-study-for-twitter-search.html" rel="nofollow">