Twitter: July 2008 Archives

July 6, 2008

I recently was assigned a project to help one of our stations get more up to speed in providing mobile news. I called the site manager for a little more info, as they already have decent mobile pages, asking if he wanted those buffed up or if he had something else in mind. His response was that although his city "wasn't as tech-savvy as Silicon Valley or even Dallas," he wanted to make sure that he was keeping up to speed on all that was available via mobile.

I thought, okay so I need to educate myself on the differences in mobile devices so the site will look great whether people are using a phone from two years ago or an i-phone, or even on screens you look at as you're pumping gas. I guess that counts as mobile...or semi-mobile. It's an area that I'm admittedly lacking in.

Then it hit me...Twitter. I knew the NY Times was on Twitter, but who else? Do people really want to receive breaking news via twitter?

I started searching newspapers/stations to see how they were doing on the Twitter-front, and was surprised at both the number of and lack of stations that are Twittering. I searched for outlets in the main US metro areas as well as a few key international areas, and the results were actually a bit skewed.

I thought that the main metro areas would be the leader in Twittering their news, and that smaller markets would be falling behind. What I found was that a few in the major markets had a good percentage of Twitter followers, there were only a few that were actively pursuing it. There were several smaller markets giving it a try who had a few followers, but didn't seem to be promoting it that much (on their websites...not sure about broadcasts).

The NY Times, of course, does well on Twitter. They offer Twitters not only in breaking news but in most of their other categories and blogs, doing a great job in covering most areas. CNN also does a good job of covering their bases and gaining followers with their Twitter feeds. ABC News, MSNBC, and Fox do a decent job of taking advantage of Twitter, but CBS fails. It looks like they're just getting on board but haven't added anything to their feeds.

Smaller, local stations are picking up speed though, and not where you might imagine. I searched for specific markets like "Seattle News" or "Denver News" etc. and then plugged in the name of the organization into the Twitter search to see if they had an account. I found some surprising results.

The Denver Post has several Twitter accounts in breaking news and sports. They don't have a lot of followers but look like they are just catching on and are giving Twitter a try.

On the west coast, I was surprised to find that Portland is way ahead of LA, San Francisco, and Seattle on providing news Twitters. Both KGW Channel 8 and the Oregonian offer Twitter feeds. Just by searching, I couldn't find a Seattle news outlet that provided Twitter feeds -- same with SFO.

I did find newspapers and stations in Charlotte, Tulsa, Phoenix, Boise, Omaha, and Des Moines that were giving Twitter a try. St. Louis Today has a growing Twitter site with 241 followers of their breaking news feed. Mineapolis, Atlanta, and Kansas City news providers are also providing updates via twitter.

So how important is it for news providers to join Twitter? It is probably too early to estimate the complete benefit, but there certainly can't be a drawback to it. It can theoretically increase traffic to the main website and act as an important news dissemination tool, whether it's breaking news, sports, or severe weather alerts. It makes news content more accessible by breaking down specific categories in an easy-to-read format...no navigation required.

In the interest of seeing how these offerings grow, I've set up a Twitter account called News Watch to follow various news sites in their own Twittering. I know that my current list is small but I will be adding more as I find them. It will be interesting to see how they grow.

By kim | Permalink | Comments (1)