Twitter: The End of Human Intelligence?
Just because I'd like to know the comings and goings of my cat, it does not mean that I am disinterested in real news.
The other day, a good friend of mine cited the existence of this as a signal of the end of human intelligence. I’ve spent a lot of time debating with this friend, and others, that Twitter/Blogging/Social media is not, in fact, the end of critical thinking and quality writing but rather the democratization of it. A lot of people have covered this topic better than I ever could, but wanted to add my two cents.
The main problem my friend, who along with her husband is part of the magazine world, has with online media is the lack of funding to create quality writing. For instance, in the “good ole days” reporters would be paid to travel with a band or do other first-person research for a story. Now, they are expected to pull photos and stories from wires in order to get the news out fast. I agree with her on this point, but I think it’s just part of the bumpy transition from dead tree media to new media. Ultimately, online publishers need to figure out a way to generate revenue. Once this happens there will be money for top-notch reporting once again.
In his interview with Steven Colbert, Phil Bronstein of the San Francisco Chronicle said something about newspapers that really struck me: “Instead of focusing on the paper part, which may in fact go away at some point, we need to focus on the news part. “ YES! This is so dead on. Instead of trying to figure out how to keep newspapers in print, they need to figure out how to disperse real news in this new environment.
Bronstein goes on to say how newspaper journalists, and the funding behind them, have exposed corruption from Watergate to Walter Reed, and that the Boston Globe recently shelled out $1 million to investigate the Catholic Church. I agree that that no blogger would be able to launch an investigation on this scale and that there is certainly a need for this kind of reporting. However, on the other side of the coin are the contributions that citizen journalists have made, including the first photos of the Hudson crash, eyewitness reports of the attacks in Mumbai — not to mention the frenzy of tweets on election night.
In the end, traditional media is going to have to learn to be a bit less traditional, and bloggers, tweeters and whatsnexters will have to adjust to sharing the social media space with good old-fashioned journalists.
And if you’re wondering what this post is doing on a CRM, email marketing and inbound marketing blog, think about it this way: As with the newspapers, just because you got customers, generated revenue and raised awareness in certain ways in the past, there’s no guarantee you’ll be successful with those same methods in the future. As a business person, keep your eye to the horizon and your mind open to new ways of doing business.
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I certainly appreciate your post, I have about 3000 followers inside of about 3 weeks on tweeter and I am an eperienced Internet Marketer, email marekter, etrc and have found that most of what is going on in twitter is, a lot of MLM, Bizopp and useless agenda. It seems like there are so many tweets I can’t possibly get to them all and find what is important to ny business. I am slos interested in stats about what sort of concversion rates Marketers are getting. Or it it’s usefulness in managing “conversations” or Brand?
Would love your thoughts.
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Thanks so much for your feedback Larry. I agree that there are a lot of people on Twitter who are using it only for their personal/business agendas without adding anything to the community. In my opinion, these aren’t good Tweeple (Twitter + people). I think it is extremely important, even for business users, to remember that they are part of a larger community and that they cannot just “shout into the void.”
As for your comment about it being too hard to track the conversations of your followers, I would suggest using an app like TweetDeck that will allow you to make lists of people (friends, coworkers, etc.) so that it is easy for you to follow these important tweets. Check out these previous posts for more info on using TweetDeck and search to make your Twitter life easier to manage: http://lexnetcg.com/blog/twitter/twitter-it-is-a-changin/ and http://lexnetcg.com/blog/twitter/five-learn-by-doing-lessons-on-twitter/.
Measurement on Twitter is hard. There are a few URL shortners that will track clicks (tr.im is my favorite), but that only give you an idea of how good your content is. Companies like Salesforce are developing ways to better track Twitter leads, so being able to know conversion rates probably isn’t that far off.
Hope this helps!
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