Sky News is installing Twitter’s most popular application Tweetdeck on all of it’s journalist’s computers in the hope that it will stir the use of social media for newsgathering and reporting.
Initially hiring Ruth Barnett as their Social Media rep in March of last year, the company has now relocated her to its Westminster Bureau and is aiming to instil the “social media mindset” into all of its writers rather than just the one.
“The big change for us in 2010 is evolving how social media plays a role in our journalism. We no longer ghettoise it to one person, but are in the process of embedding throughout the whole team,” said Julian March, executive producer of Sky News Online, to Journalism.co.uk.
TweetDeck began its life in July 2008, developed by UK’s Iain Dodsworth, and was the first client to integrate “groups” as a means of organising twitter users. Since, Tweetdeck has become a company in its own right taking $2M in funding and expanding its team from one to eight.
The client itself has also grown, integrating Facebook and Myspace as well as adding all of Twitter’s new features, including its lists functionality, replacing it’s trademark groups feature.
It’s no suprise the application has become so popular with bloggers and journalists, the application’s column based layout makes it a remarkably effective way of staying up to date with news. Of course, along with being a great means of news retrieval, Tweetdeck brings a whole heap of procrastination and interruption. Wonder if this gets pulled before it even takes off. :]
“Sky News is installing Twitter’s most popular application Tweetdeck on all of it’s journalist’s in the hope that it will stir the use of social media for newsgathering and reporting.”
I knew it was only a matter of time before these things became implantable :)
I prefer Seesmic Desktop, it’s brighter.
“including its lists functionality, replacing it’s trademark groups feature.”
For god’s's sakes’, learn to use apostrophes’ in the right place’s!!’! Or at least use them incorrectly in a more consistent manner.
G’day Ren,
It’s quite appalling and indicative of the amount of care a news agency takes in reporting the actual facts when it can’t even get its spelling and punctuation right.
These things should not even need to be part of Journalism 101 as they should be a prerequisite.
Don’t get me wrong, I applaud them for moving in the direction towards supporting social media and providing tools as well as access to their journalists. Twitter has proven to be a widely used source for breaking news and reaching so many people in a matter of seconds, but it’s also proven to provide wrong and misleading information. I’d also argue that the most proficient users of Twitter would agree that one of the problems that has arisen with the Global Mass Media adoption of Twitter is that it’s being hijacked as yet another “Broadcasting” medium that’s being abused. I sure hope they have a plan in place to train their team as to one of the biggest values that I have yet to see mentioned, which is that it’s a great channel for dialogue with their audience. They mention they get that with Facebook, but the notion is left out with regards to how they plan to use Twitter.
What worries me, is the following quote from their site and their foreign affairs editor Tim Marshall,
“What you have to do is understand what landscape you’re operating in. Just like any type of journalism you have to make sure you use the tools available to do the best job you can.”
EDUCATION is key to success! If you had a teenage daughter that was just picked up by a young hormonal teenage boy, wouldn’t you hope that their sex ed teacher did a little more than just give them a condom and “encourage” them to be safe?
Just food for thought. Tools are great, but knowing how to use them is whole other topic. A key differentiator to winning or losing in this space!
Wow, no way dude, Tweet Deack totally rocks yo!
RT
http://www.total-anonymity.at.tc
I’m not sure why the software is the mandate as opposed to just saying “use twitter”
You’d have thought they’d have picked one of the better Twitter apps to mandate, instead of that Adobe-based pile o’ stuff.
Ouch. Tweetdeck sucks.
Kangeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee ni
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