Lesson 6: Twitter is taking over.

“Twitter lets me hear from a lot of people in a very short period of time.”- Robert Scoble

Twitter is taking over the world of journalism. I know the quote is kind of a lame way to put it, but it is so true. I remember joining Twitter in 2009, thinking, why am I joining this? I'm not a celebrity and nobody is going to care what I have to say. In the two years since I joined I've acquired only a mere 250 followers, but Twitter has become a part of my life in such a weird way. It doesn't quite dictate my life, as some teenagers are letting Twitter, but it really has become a big part of my daily life and has really taken over.

The other day in our news-magazine production class, our teacher asked us to do some homework...Like really, homework? We've never had homework in that class before aside our duties apart of the class in terms of editing, writing, and well you get the point. We were asked to read an article and take notes about it, it was about Twitter. At first, I thought the assignment was pretty dumb (probably because it was our only homework we've ever had) but after reading it, it was actually an interesting article and I actually learned about a few things...Rare.

The homework we were assigned was perfectly timely because Twitter just made their newest update (which is actually a very nice layout page, Twitter, don't pull a Facebook, keep it the way it is) but they updated it to make it more user-friendly, and even better for journalism. Instead of it being as separated as it was before, you can now see pretty much everything you'd want to from three pages: home, connect, and discover. The new change in terms of journalism is one of the very best updates Twitter has had yet.

Innovative. Twitter's new discovery page. Some of the top trending topics are made into stories that redirect you to news websites and also refer you to the trending page that takes you into a list of all related tweets.

Twitter has taken over and has become the new thing in social networking but also journalism itself. I find a majority of my news on Twitter, and its no doubt that a lot of other people do as well (this year alone, I discovered the death of Steve Jobs, the findings of Osama Bin Laden, and the announcement of the NFL Lockout/NBA lockouts being over with, all through Twitter). The new discovery page on Twitter opens up unlimited options for journalism and as mentioned by Buttry, Twitter is the best invention for journalists since the cell phone (which can easily go hand-in-hand). There is no doubt that Twitter is taking over, but as Roger Kondrat said "Facebook is to 2007 is to 2009," makes me ponder is Twitter to 2009 while 2012 will be to something else?

As for now, Twitter is one of the most useful tools in this age of access. Everything said by a favorite celebrity, friend, peer, or anybody can be in your palm in seconds through Twitter and you can discover countless things. The Torch has made its transfer to Twitter this year and has been successful and one of the things really stressed aside the newsmagazine itself. Twitter is taking over, the world of journalism and the world of media and is one of the best innovations, in my opinion of journalism today, but will it be tomorrows best outlet? I guess we'll wait and see.