Twitter is the New CNN

[Lithium1330]

A new study paints the popular micro-blogging service Twitter in a whole new light and sets it up to take on traditional news media.

Here's something I've always known about Twitter: It's about information not socialization. Twitter's called a "micro-blogging" service, after all. If it were all about social interaction, perhaps it would be described as a micro-social network. Of course, with millions and millions of users, Twitter is anything but micro.

And now, my Twitter hypothesis has some academic support. A group of Korean researchers recently completed and presented the results of a unique quantitative study that paints Twitter, in fairly stark terms, as the likely future of news.

Here are some of their more interesting findings:

Twitter isn't like a social network because it's not "mutual."
On Facebook, we have to friend each other to really engage. On Twitter, people will follow you if you're interesting and they get something out of it, even if you never follow them back. That sounds a lot like the reasons why people buy The New Yorker, subscribe to a newspaper, or watch a particular television news program.

Twitter is the New CNN | Lance Ulanoff | PCMag.com

I really hate social networks, but twitter is nothing about socialization (the article explains it very well), it is a very good platform to share information in real time and to a vast "audience", this is the future and I hope that all of us could use it in our favor, specially when "regular" media has a lot of vested interests.

 

[Oliver]

Absolutely, Lithium - you've got it in one. The ability to get focused, relevant information to your interests that Twitter provides is unsurpassed. Truly amazing stuff - I really should start posting more!