Brian Williams says what I think about Twitter
Via Romenesko, I nod my head at what NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams has to say about Twitter:
You’re an avid blogger, but you’re not on Twitter. Why not?
The details of my own life bore me, so I cannot imagine anyone expressing interest in them. My blog has so far proved to be enough of an outlet for me.
A few of your colleagues have gotten themselves in trouble by tweeting before they think. Has that given you pause?
No. We had a case in point [recently] with Obama’s statement after the Nobel Prize, and a friend was printing out and handing me column after column and blog after blog about it. And I couldn’t help myself; I said I wonder if someone will actually think about it and write a thoughtful piece about it. And here’s George Packer’s blog from The New Yorker. I was just going to read some of these: John Dickerson, Glenn Kessler, Peggy Noonan. Everybody’s like, “Here’s what I think of it!”
And I’m not in that big a hurry. There is nothing I need to say so urgently. If I feel the need for Twitter, if I think it will satisfy something and fill a national yearning, I’ll start doing it.
via Brian Williams: Leno Yes, Twitter No – 2009-10-17 02:00:00 EDT | Broadcasting & Cable.
Yes, exactly.
I know there are a lot of good people who use Twitter. Heck, even my girlfriend is on it. But when I think about the people who have most steadily embraced Twitter – the Meghan McCains, the Sarah Palins, and so on – I feel like it’s a vain parade and not for me. I tend to think in much more than 140 characters and in pictures and video and blockquotes, and if I were to use Twitter more, I’d just be pointing you to my blog anyway.
So why don’t you just add me to your Google Reader instead of wondering when you can follow me via Tweetdeck?
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Nice piece,Michael. For a guy like me, blogging is plenty fast.
The people who have steadily embraced Twitter are Meghan McCain and Sarah Palin? Megan is fine, Sarah hardly uses it, and people were tweeting two years before they even heard of it. This is kind of a warped view. Not that Twitter is the solution to all problems, but it is the solution to some problems. Maybe Brian Williams doesn’t have those problems – so what? He’s globally famous and atypical. Average people have found myriad uses for this tool when used right in combination with goals and a strategy.
I agree with you that Twitter is a good solution to certain problems, and I’m glad that people use it toward those ends. But it’s also very interesting to me how much people use it to link to other things. Or how often our contributors ask us here when we’ll be able to integrate their Twitter feeds into their T/S pages. What that says to me is that for a lot of Twitter users, the format isn’t really sufficient to accommodate the communication needs of a lot of people, the ‘globally famous’ and ‘average’ alike.
And I also don’t think I’m wrong about the Meghan McCain problem, or the other glambot celebtards who use the service. Of course, they are just dealing with a market reality – it’s easier and cheaper for them to get their messages out to the world, such as they are, in 140 character streams, no longer needing to hector magazine editors and TV producers to be their go-between with their adoring publics.
In response to another comment. See in context »