Twitter was introduced to me as a social networking site where people would post what they were doing ever second of their lives, enabling them to publicize their daily actions, thoughts and rants to the world. It wasn’t well received by my group of friends because it provided an unwanted plethora of status updates and play-by-plays— something that was already captured through Facebook. I tested it out, used it as a hub for my status updates, but slowly phased it out only to return to facebook as my status update hub. What I found annoying about twitter then is I saw it as a limited facebook and all I could get out of it was status updates. Also, I didn’t like the fact that random people could follow my tweets. The direct messages were a mess and it really didn’t serve a purpose outside of Facebook. Because I didn’t see a need for another source of status updates, I quit Twitter.

Twitter was then reintroduced to me again during my blogging class. I used it a bit, but still didn’t understand the reason to have one. It wasn’t until this journalism class that I fully understood the benefits of using twitter. The problem the entire time was I was trying to take twitter and apply what I knew about social networking from Facebook. My failure was not using a new approach with Twitter. The approach that I found necessary is using Twitter as a networking tool among people in your industry or field of interest. Instead of using it as a closed social networking tool, like Facebook where you are only friends with people in your inner social network, you should use it as an open social networking tool. This means allowing all twitter users to be a part of your social network. The difference in this approach is that you can now receive the industry updates or even status updates from those who may not necessarily be your friend in person, or even know who you are, but you are still “in the know” because you are friends with them on twitter. By following people outside of your closed social network but in a larger network within your industry or interests you are creating a larger network of people who can provide valuable information or opportunity.

Taking this idea and applying it to the future of Twitter as a tool for journalists there are many benefits. Many journalists believe that using twitter enhances reporting. Jason DeRusha (@derushaj) is a reporter at WCCO-TV in Minneapolis who uses Twitter daily as part of his job. Others find Twitter an amazing tool that allows them to conduct interviews with the public in a matter of minutes. Instead of spending the time placing phone calls, they can send out a tweet and have instant feedback. In addition to those, Twitter now is more popularly know for a journalistic tool used for breaking news. This is also a place where a shift in journalism where journalism is not only up to news organizations or journalists, anyone can now be a part of journalism.

Mainly with the idea of breaking news, we now see people playing an increasingly larger role with this specific reporting type. Not only is the average daily person now capable of spreading news to thousands of recipients in seconds, they are exercising this ability. News stations are now quoting people’s twitters and even journalist agree they do rely on people’s tweets every now and then. However, the problem of creditably also comes into play. But when hundreds of people are tweeting the same thing, I’m pretty sure that tells the news organization that something important is happening.

Twitter overall has already changed the world of journalism. It gives the power to citizens, it also gives makes more information available to all journalists/organizations, plus it creates a journalistic network of people and news. It’s hard to predict the role of twitter in the future but I see it as an intense network of ordinary individuals who will be the primary “on the ground” type reporters. Organizations with then rely on those individuals to provide them instantaneous updates, up-to-the-second (which breaks down news to a new level as we are currently at “up to the minute” news). The downside with up-to-the-second news reporting style is similar to what I stated before—this excess of information. But more is better right?