A few folks have been using Twitter as a kind of live-blogging mechanism, so folks following a Twitter feed can read what a reporter has to say about an event or news scene as he/she types it in a handheld device. That can be perfectly valid, but it’s important -- as with any medium -- to consider the audience, and how they’re likely consuming what’s being provided.
A lot of the Twittering I’ve seen reads as if you have to be at the event to understand what was said -- you have to be so much an insider that you’re already on the inside. If that’s the case, what’s the point? To be pedantic about it, some questions:
Do your readers need more information? Should you give a full name of whom you’re talking about?
- Shouldn’t you say specifics rather than just allude?
- Can you sum up, or should you quote?
- Yes, it’s only 140 characters, but as Mark Twain might have said: I wrote a full article because I didn’t have time to Twitter. Writing intelligently in 140-character bursts is a hard thing to do.
What else?
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