| DCW was an early Twitter adopter. We have an official Twitter feed, which you can sign up for on the right side bar, and Matt, Oreo and I also have personal feeds. We automatically send out all our posts on the official Twitter feed. But that's just us. We see the value and the import of Twitter, and have thus been following with interest how Twitter has been reshaping media. To wit: #IranElection was the major source of information not just for regular folks, but also for the MSM. When Michael Jackson passed away last week, the MSM was reporting that he was in a coma, but TMZ posted the sad news, which was then Twittered around the world. Because Twitter works best when one follows many people, many MSM members of Twitter are following bloggers and others who post a lot of news. Yesterday, the power of Twitter smacked down the Washington Post in their attempt to create two levels of "news." It started with a piece in Politico. A lobbyist received a memo from WaPo about how it was going to start holding "salons" where, for $25,000 one could meet with members of the Obama administration, members of Congress, and even WaPo folks for "off the record access." Why? WaPo needs the money. Pure and simple. Think about it, when a lobbyist provides a memo to a reporter because the lobbyist thinks there is an ethics problem.... Immediately, Twitter picked it up with the hashtage #Wapodeals. It went everywhere, and by the afternoon, WaPo, after stumbling and mumbling, canceled the salons. Had the information not been Twittered, it would have stayed with the readers of Politico which, while a great read for political junkies, is not a household source for most "regular" people. Twitter leveled the playing field. And WaPo lost the ability to create news for those who could pay $25,000 for an evening, and those who could not or would not. |
