Twitterific?

A colleague and I regularly get into debates over the usefulness of online social networking, with sites such as Twitter and Facebook. I see these sites as a powerful tool with great potential to totally reshape the way journalists work. My colleague is basically just too skeptical of sharing so much information online, particularly the nonsensical, personal kind of info that seems to fill up a lot of these sites.

But let's ignore the nonsensical (or whimsical) uses of such tools for a moment. For awhile, Twitter was one of those online applications that, in some ways, was born ahead of its time, and we're slowly starting to find beneficial uses for it. When you look at the numbers for how news sites are starting to such social networking online apps, you can't help but think we're really on the cusp of a revolution within an already-ongoing online revolution for the news business.

Not sure what I mean? Check out this analysis of how news sites are integrating Twitter into their offerings (The Baltimore Sun and b are mentioned), then let's chat some more. Sure, the numbers are small. But intriguing, if not somewhat promising. We'll set up a Twitter feed soon for this site.

Do you think there's real potential for a site like Twitter to really revamp the way news is disseminated? I think the potential is vast. Super vast. David Cushman, a UK blogger and digital online media guru, thinks so. Check out his interesting views on his blog, FasterFuture.

More "Reinvention" Discussion

Check out Charles Apple's blog over at VisualEditors.com. There you'll find a long discussion about The Baltimore Sun's "reinvention," with some interesting back-and-forth of opinions.

Also, have you heard of Twitter.com? All the young folks are using it these days. Well, you can search Twitter, which is like sifting through the stream-of-consciousness of the Internet. I searched for the words "Sun redesign," and this is what I found: check out this link.