Paul Bradshaw defines Twitter in an interview… via Twitter.
The post starts in German, but Paul’s bit is in English:
halbluchs: @paulbradshaw what makes twitter so popular and addictive? is it just a hype or is it more?
paulbradshaw: @halbluchs the same things that have made texting so popular: brevity, connectivity, control.
Worth a read, especially for journos who are trying to figure out the best way to use Twitter in their jobs.
I’ve just spent a rather fantastic hour watching Don Was – of Was (Not Was) fame – interview Ozzy Osbourne about the birth of Heavy Metal, Black Sabbath and that infamous reality TV show:
Ozzy: I only ever watched a couple of episodes, you know. I don’t like to see myself on TV. I’m all errr…whacked. I’m trying to fix myself when I’m watching me. Plus the fact I was that whacked out all the time, I couldn’t understand what the fuck I was talking about. They were thinking about putting subtitles on it – one in English and one in Braille.
Don: So you weren’t trying to play it up at all?
Ozzy: Oh no! You couldn’t be THAT dim!
The interview comes in eight parts. The first, which talks about Birmingham and The Beatles, is below. With all the parodies that exist out there is easy to forget just how lucid, down-to-earth, interesting and entertaining the ol’bat muncher from Aston can be:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xY_om_OGkg&rel=1]
I had my first seminar of my new course yesterday. It wasn’t too stressful, more an introduction to the module from our tutor.
It was a relief, actually, because I had panicked after printing off an article on our recommended reading list.
I was a student once and I remember how irritating it was when academics invented their own impenetrable language to write papers. But the abstract I read yesterday really made my eyes water:
This paper offers a conceptual framework for filling a void in the research on convergence and for extending research into gatekeeping and diffusion of innovation. It offers the Convergence Continuum as a dynamic model that defines news convergence as a series of behavior-based activities illustrating the interaction and cooperation levels of staff members at newspapers, television stations and Web organizations with news partnerships. The continuum’s components provide media professionals with a touchstone as they develop cross-media alliances.
Conceptual framework? Gatekeeping? Touchstone? Argh! And that’s only the abstract – this thing goes on in a similar vein for another 30 pages!
After reading the paragraph three times, I think it means the paper is offering a guide to what media organisations should do when they want to start using lots of different methods to reach their audience. Am I right? I’m not sure! Answers on a postcard, please.
Yesterday I logged on to Twitbin and saw that bounder had tweeted about Birmingham’s Conservative MEP website using a picture of Birmingham Alabama by accident.
The story ended up making the nationals (due to a press release by Labour who, apparently, didn’t credit their original source). But bounder’s tweet got to me well before then and about five seconds before one of my colleagues put down the phone to a contact who had rang him about it.
Now it was always going to be my colleague’s story as he has far better political links. But, if it shows one thing, it shows how Twitter can be a rather speedy way to transmit a story.
I just wish the Twitter feed on this website updated faster – so far it has been as slow as a very slow thing going slowly. Grr.
We’ve got one going spare. On the business desk. Sitting next to me – but don’t let that put you off!
I’ve heard the advert will be appearing in a Birmingham-based broadsheet newspaper near you soon, but if you’re interested you could always shoot an email to our editor Marc (marc_reeves@mrn.co.uk)…
I’ve been putting off this post because it covers so many things I hardly know where to start.
December was a strange month for me because this blog somehow got me into the group of people developing the new Birmingham Post website (there will be an update on this soon – promise!).
After taking us back in from the cold, I think Trinity Mirror decided it better do something interesting with us… and quickly. I guess the planned move to Fort Dunlop made for the perfect opportunity.
Since then, things have got a little crazy around here.
The laptop is part of it. Apparently, when we all move over to our new site at Fort Dunlop, everyone will be swapping their antiquated Mac Classics for one of these Compaq 6710bs. I suspect the good battery life and the 3G connection are all part of the plan to make Post & Mail journalists more flexible and mobile. From what I’ve heard (although I don’t know for sure) this leapfrogs us over most other Trinity Mirror publications in the technology stakes.
The reason I have my laptop early is because tomorrow I start a new distance learning postgraduate course. It is a Trinity Mirror collaboration with the University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN) and is built around the university’s Journalism Leaders Programme.
It’s in its second term, but two people dropped out and it was decided that one person from The Post and another from The Mail should take up the places. As part of the recent madness, I got asked if I wanted to do it. Well…it was a bit of a no brainer really.
Seminars for the course happen online and that’s why I got the laptop early. I needed a machine that could cope with online conferences. The first seminar is tomorrow afternoon… and I’m nervous. It’s like the first day of school again.
The course looks at the transition of the newsroom as a result of converging technologies and investigates what is required to manage that change… or at least that’s how I’ve interpreted it.
It’s quite a big thing to take on, with at least eight to ten hours of study expected each week. We also have residential weeks every couple of months that seem fairly intense.
But of course I’m excited about it – three months ago I was utterly despairing at the backward technology we have here, now I’m being asked to go on a training course that not only deals with current developments, but also looks to the future. Who wouldn’t be excited?!
There are other things going on around here that suggest to me we’re rapidly time travelling from 1998 to 2008. A rather lovely shiny new Mac has appeared on a desk near to me and a few people are fresh back from video training.
I am under no illusions that fast-forwarding a decade is going to have its problems. You can’t expect people who have been working on Mac OS9 for at least the last seven years to suddenly switch to a completely new system (and continue producing a paper) without a few teething troubles.
But we are finally moving towards the sort of operation I’ve been longing to work for since I arrived and I can’t wait to see what happens next!