Why Twitter Matters For Media

(Alan Rusbridger guardian.co.uk)   I've lost count of the times people – including a surprising number of colleagues in media companies – roll their 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."

Well, yes and no. Inanity – yes, sure, plenty of it. But saying that Twitter has got nothing to do with the news business is about as misguided as you could be.

Here, off the top of my head, are 15 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
2) It's where things happen first
3) As a search engine, it rivals Google
4) It's a formidable aggregation tool
5) It's a great reporting tool
6) It's a fantastic form of marketing
7) It's a series of common conversations.
8) It's more diverse
9) It changes the tone of writing
10) It's a level playing field
11) It has different news values
12) It has a long attention span
13) It creates communities
14) It changes notions of authority
15) It is an agent of change

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