twitters

I am trying to understand twitter, but I still feel like the point of it is essentially updating your facebook status and in that regard its just another form of voyeurism. When I first joined twitter to follow Gustav I didn’t know who else would be good to follow. I remembered reading an article in Wired about Julia Allison who essentially made herself famous from twittering and blogging, almost a Paris Hilton of the blogosphere. So I followed her, which really only confirmed my confusion with the purpose of twitter because all of her twitters were about what designer outfit she was wearing and what cleanse she was currently on. I was glad that in the article “Newspapers that Twitter” had a list of people to follow. I concluded form the article “Newspapers that twitter” that twitters best purpose is to report breaking news such as the earthquake in California or the one in the United Kingdom or the verdict from the Lewis Scooter Libby trial, but it seems difficult to know what people to follow and who will have that type of breaking news. I guess part of it is being at the right place at the right time. I think newspapers who twitter can absolutely benefit from using twitter because after someone receives a twitter they can look for the full story on the newspapers website or at the newspaper itself. In the article “Old Thinking Permeates Major Journalism School” when Alana said she was the only blogger in her classroom I wasn’t to surprised, I feel like in high school I knew a lot of people that blogged but it was such a self serving act that I never wanted to do it or be so public about it, that and it seemed a little narcissistic to think other people really cared about what you were doing, so maybe I till have that mindset with blogging. I do think that if you have a niche then blogging can be very profitable. In the article “Cover: Mind the Gap” what resonated with me was that when you go to school you expect to be taught what you need to go into the working world, however with the curriculum being so slow to change and no one really no where the industry is going for sure its hard to know what exactly we need to learn. Also the article states that many of our professors come from the old school of journalism and aren’t completely grasping the new waves of technology. I agree with the article in that the best thing we can do is to have an environment where you can collaborate with other students and with the professor in order to make the most beneficial learning environment possible.