DISQUS

Aron,
I'm noodling the same questions. I can imagine having a features writer who is covering a multi-day festival using it to tell a good narrative from the event. Same might work for a sports writer at a tournament. The pics, vids, audio, blog posts, etc. all in one place, in a stream.

As for the money, you can push content from Posterous to WordPress, though I don't know how that works since I haven't tried that yet. In theory, one could sell ads on that WordPress blog.

I'm not sure I see the point fully yet, either, though it is clever software (especially with easy e-mail posting).

So ... any updates?

Now now .. remember, it's not a battle to the death ;-)

Yes, I think a retweet does equal an endorsement, at least to a degree. Whether we want them to or not, I've noticed people treating what others retweet as original posts.

In my opinion, a big part of the value that journalists can bring to the Twittersphere (and elsewhere) is the verification of facts. Twitter is notorious for spreading rumors, mostly through retweets. If you're a journalist, people should be turning to you on Twitter for what's really going on, not for passing along unverified information.

Jacob,

I understand what you're saying, and I agree that if the Times were to follow *only* special-interest groups of a certain persuasion, that case would be made. If it followed most people who followed it, I think the Times could stand behind what it's doing without worry.

On a much larger point, even if the Times chose to not follow anyone back, I think it still should interact with its Twitter followers. Take the Ashton Kutcher example: He doesn't follow that many people, but he responds to people, which makes his presence on Twitter much more rich. I think that's where the Times could benefit. Someone there could be monitoring what is being sent on Twitter (via @replies to the Times), and responding with @replies back. That type of interactivity makes the Times, and anyone else, much more accessible. You wouldn't answer every question or respond to every person (it would be nearly impossible), but you could pick-and-choose. Listening and interactivity are central to what Twitter, and social media in general, are all about.

I think it's good that the Times is asking for opinions. Thanks for listening to ours, and thanks for the comment!

Cheers,
Robert

I considered Publish2, but the way we have this set up might not work. I'll keep looking. Haven't tried OneSpot before. I'll check it out. Posting the links isn't very hard, though.

Thanks for the compliments.

Thanks! Really appreciate that.

We were just concerned with getting it done and done right first. Next step is to get some ads going...

Just launched yesterday afternoon, so nothing really yet. Statesman wasn't even linking to it until mid-day today. I'll update when we get some results. Thanks!

Mandy, I'm with you. There are ways to get around an IP block, but it would be nice to at least make it *that* much more difficult for those trolls.

I think anonymous comments on big news sites will be a thing of the past at some point. They suck up too much staff time, which is something we don't have the luxury of anymore.

Good blog post. I'm the guy behind the @statesman Twitter account; thanks for highlighting it. Information sharing definitely is changing fast. My advice: embrace it. It won't be unnerving if your organization is active in social media.

Cheers,
Robert

I'd love to know how much staff time that takes. Or does the LAT contract out commenting?

Daniel Honigman is a pioneer. When he pushed the Colonel Tribune idea, no other newspaper had figured out how to effectively use social media. Not only was he first, but he did it right.

I'm sure a lot of people who follow @ColonelTribune are like me - I would not have thought to read the Tribune in the past, but now check it out on a regular basis. The personality and responsiveness that Honigman has helped bring to the Tribune is something that all newspapers and TV stations should emulate. I know I have (to a good measure of success) at the Austin American-Statesman.

Reader comments on newspaper sites are tough to deal with. Blogs, such as this one, generally don't face the same problems as sitewide commenting on a general news site because readers who are here are generally interested in the topics we post about. Newspaper readers parachute in on stories, likely have no relationship with the author of the story and perhaps not even that much of an interest in the topic. That lack of emotional involvement, combined with anonymity, can lead to some ugly comments.

This is posted at the top of all comment sections, in plain sight, at the Statesman:

Austinites love to be heard, and we're giving you a bullhorn. We just ask that you keep things civil. Leave out the personal attacks. Do not use profanity, ethnic or racial slurs, or take shots at anyone's sexual orientation or religion. If you can't be nice, we reserve the right to remove your material and ban users who violate our visitor's agreement.

The "visitor's agreement" part is linked to a much longer legal memo.

As for enforcing those rules, I think you need a few things:

1. Good tools. I like the ability to punish users without banning them. Also, having the ability to block by various methods would help (IP, confirmed e-mail, user name, etc.)

2. Authenticated users. We still allow anonymous comments on our sites, but I'm starting to believe we need people to be held accountable for their posts.

3. Staff resources. You need to have several people focused on responding to abuse reports. It can overwhelm people. No good answer here except you need a lot of people watching the shop. And that staff needs to make sure they consistently moderate based on the stated rules. Consistency is really important here.

Can't wait to hear what other say..

Thanks, Daniel... I hope he does, too.

Thanks, Brandon. I'll check it out. Thanks for reading the post!

Frymaster,
I realize it might be a "Duh!"-type entry for someone who has been using social media for many years. This entry (and blog) is aimed at the mainstream media, which has *not* been using social media for very long.
Thanks for reading.
- Robert

Exactly, Steve.
I don't think there's a "wrong" way to use Twitter, but the way Colonel Tribune (and many others) are using Twitter to interact with the audience is more interesting than the NYT, IMO. The Times has a lot of followers because, well, it's the Times.

Interesting. Would love to hear from someone who uses this what the experience/moderation capabilities are like.

Still feel this way? Just curious

Nice presentation. I was a copy editor in a former life, and I've written thousands (maybe tens of thousands) of headlines. There is good advice in this presentation, though I would NOT write the headline first. Read the story first, even if quickly. Too many headlines miss the point or misread the point of stories. The best explanation for that is often that people write a headline then breeze through the story.

The institution doesn't have to put out a Twitterfeed, either. Even those can be (and should be) personal. Check out http://twitter.com/statesman http://twitter.com/dallas_news and http://twitter.com/coloneltribune for examples. In fact, I'd argue it's even more important that the institution use social media such as Twitter the right way.