Twitter vs Facebook

Well this blog is a little bit late but you know what they say- better late than never. 

So last week we had Spencer Howson as our guest tutor and it was great to hear about how he uses Twitter as a journalist. 

I am an avid user of Facebook and a bit of a rookie on Twitter. The highlight of my Twitter life was when Spencer Howson tweeted me back twice in one day last Friday. And this for me, emphasised the difference between Twitter and Facebook. As Howson said in the lecture, Facebook is for people you knew at school and don't really like and twitter is for people you don't know but would like to. 

This is really why Twitter is so much more useful for journalists than facebook. The fact that I could tweet (and get a response!)someone who is a leading journalist shows that the world is at your fingertips in terms of information. 

So now, to continue my learning curve on Twitter I am going to tweet my story to Howson- let's see what happens!

An Olympic Affair

Source: http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/EJCYExWQypb/Giant+Olympic+Rings+Launched+River+Thames

Everywhere you look at the moment there is something about the Olympics. This is especially true in the online world. Take Brisbanetimes.com.au today for example. In the top section alone there is a medal tally and nine stories about the Olympics.  This is then immediately followed by a whole Olympics section before any local news. 

Source: Brisbanetimes.com.au screen print 10.08.2012 2:30pm

 

When I saw that Australia had won their 6^th gold medal, it took me a total of 10 seconds on my phone to find out who won it, in what sport and what the race circumstances were. Even as a Gen Y who has grown up with the internet, the speed and shere amount of imformation available never ceases to amaze me.

So how has the internet changed the way that people are sourcing their news about the Olympics compared to 4 years ago? During the last Olympics I was backpacking through Eastern Europe and virtually missed the whole Games. I didn’t watch any coverage because I wasn’t near TVs and the coverage on the internet was nowhere near as comprehensive. Wow what a difference four years makes!

As a Foxtel subscriber I could download a free Olympics iPad app which allows me to stream eight chanels on  my iPad 24 hours a day. I can sit at my desk with the Olympics on in the background all from a small device that fits in my handbag. Compare this with the fact that when I was backpacking in 2008 I didn’t even have a smartphone. Now you see people in every airport with an iPad, smartphones have become a staple in the Western world and a Macbook air weighs so little that there’s no reason not to take it all over the world with you.

 

Channel 9 has received a huge amount of flack about their coverage of the Olympics and I think that this is in part becuase people are now used to getting information/coverage that is tailored to suit them.

 

Source: http://www.facebook.com/#!/ch9fail

 A facebook page titled "Channel 9 Olympics Coverage sucks" (you can view the page here http://www.facebook.com/#!/ch9fail) has almost 27,000 likes. After all this backlash against the channel I can't wait to see how things change in the next 4 years and how Rio's Olympics are shown to the world.

Testing the Waters

Well here it is, my first post for Online Journalism. I must admit that I'm a little apprehensive about blogging and tweeting and storify-ing and tumbler-ing and a number of other social media websites-ering that I'm sure exist but that I don't even know about yet!

I dabbled in twitter a few years ago but it never really caught on in my life. But I guess for the sake of graduating with a semi-ok GPA, that's all about to change and I am about to wholeheartedly embrace the online world. 


And I can definitely understand why I need to embrace it.... For journalists, it really isn't an option to not be on a whole range of social media sites in order to stay across what is happening both in the world (for news tips) and in the industry. 


We all know that the traditional print media is gradually becoming a thing of the past and online journalism will, in my opinion at least, totally replace print media some time in the next 50 years. I for one, love to read news but would only pick up a newspaper once every couple of months. Every morning, I wake up and check brisbanetimes.com.au on my mobile phone. Then, when I get to work I check the same website on my computer and usually once more on my phone before bed. This puts me smack bang on par with how most people use different devices (although my student budget doesn't allow for a tablet!)

So now that I've established that I access my news at times and on the same devices very similarl to lots of people in the world,  I am looking forward to delving further into the online world and seeing the different ways that people and journalists interact with social media and the news and whether I'm the norm or not. 

I think I'm in for a steep learning curve about social media in the next week so stay tuned and I'll let you know how I go.