Alan Rusbridger: Why Twitter matters for media organisations

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Take from the guardian.co.uk, Fri 19 Nov 2010 10.41 GMT

Do you  roll your eyes at the mention of Twitter. "No time for it," they say. "Inane stuff about what twits are having for breakfast. Nothing to do with the news business."

Things, which Twitter does rather effectively and which should be of the deepest interest to anyone involved in the media at any level.

1) It's an amazing form of distribution

A lot of the best tweets are links. It's instantaneous. Its reach far and wide.

The life expectancy of much exclusive information can now be measured in minutes, if not in seconds. That has profound implications for journalism.

2) It's where things happen first

Not all things. News organisations still break lots of news. But, increasingly, news happens first on Twitter

3) As a search engine, it rivals Google

Google is limited to using algorithms to ferret out information in the unlikeliest hidden corners of the web. Twitter goes one stage further – harnessing the mass capabilities of human intelligence to the power of millions in order to find information that is new, valuable, relevant or entertaining.

4) It's a formidable aggregation tool

It has become your personalised news feed. Again, no news organisation could possibly aim to match, or beat, the combined power of all those worker bees collecting information and disseminating it.

5) It's a great reporting tool

Many of the best reporters are now habitually using Twitter as an aid to find information. Or it can be reporters using Twitter to find witnesses to specific events – people who were in the right place at the right time, but would otherwise be hard to find.

6) It's more diverse

Traditional media allowed a few voices in. Twitter allows anyone.

7) It has different news values

People on Twitter quite often have an entirely different sense of what is and what isn't news. The power of tens of thousands of people articulating those different choices can wash back into newsrooms and affect what editors choose to cover.

8) It has a long attention span

The opposite is usually argued – that Twitter is simply a, instant, highly condensed stream of consciousness. The perfect medium for goldfish. But set your Tweetdeck to follow a particular keyword or issue or subject and you may well find that the attention span of Twitterers puts newspapers to shame.

9) It creates communities

Or, rather communities form themselves around particular issues, people, events, artifacts, cultures, ideas, subjects or geographies. They may be temporary communities, or long-terms ones, strong ones or weak ones. But I think they are recognisably communities.

10) It changes notions of authority

Instead of waiting to receive the 'expert' opinions of others – mostly, journalists — Twitter shifts the balance to so-called 'peer to peer' authority.

11) It is an agent of change

As this ability of people to combine around issues and to articulate them grows, so it will have increasing effect on people in authority. Companies are already learning to respect, even fear, the power of collaborative media. Increasingly, social media will challenge conventional politics and, for instance, the laws relating to expression and speech.

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