Twitter is “banality broadcaster”?

Andrew Mueller in the “Moment of Madness” column in the Weekend FT Magazine (a favourite of mine) refers to Twitter as the “banality broadcaster”. I have to say this quote struck me as potent evidence for the prosecution of post social media sites. It also reminded me of that quote recently from Dr David Lewis of Sussex University: “Using Twitter suggests a level of insecurity whereby, unless people recognize you, you cease to exist”.

My last Twitter was 19 days ago. I was never a constant updater, believing that one should always follow the rule that a Tweet or post must have something useful to say to the world, or atleast pass on a useful or enjoyable link. I’ve gone Twitted shy of late, probably because I buy some of that criticism.

Yes Twitter is about ego and banal self-promotion, but there are some good things to be said about it too, and I don’t just mean useful traffic directions. Even from the banal spoutings, you can get a good picture of someone’s personality – even if it is just to confirm that we all, however famous or brilliant, have everyday thoughts. You can get a pretty good idea if you would want to spend time with a stranger from their Tweets.

I for one like getting the headlines from the Telegraph tweets; it means I don’t have to scan the whole website to clock the best stories and, heaven forbid, actually have to buy or pick up the newspaper.

Who knows what will replace Twitter, in the same way that Twitter is replacing Facebook and Facebook replaced the likes of Friends Reunited.
But my guess is that it will be something even more immediate and fast. And the information market rights itself in a very democratic way.

David Cracknell Digital?

I thought of calling this blog “David Cracknell Digital” or “DC Digital” on account of my current passion for the transformation of the old PR and Press world. As a man of newspapers, more than ten years on “Fleet Street”, I feel strongly that within a few years we won’t be talking about “digital PR” or “SEO marketing”. We will just talk about PR or marketing, in the same way we do not distinguish between “press PR” or “broadcast PR”.

Anyway here I will seek to focus on the current state of digital communications and the future for online reputation management. This is fast becoming an integrated part of my business, Big Tent Communications in the UK. I say “integrated” as I have seen little evidence in the UK market yet that this is happening much. The US is a different story. But here most firms tend to have “bolt-on” digital teams. This is borne out by talking to CEOs and potential in-house clients. “From what I have seen, most of the major firms talk the talk but do not really know how it’s done,” one told me privately quite recently.

In other words, you have the technical guys, the computer science and IT grads on the one hand; and the “old media” specialists on the other. These two groups seldom go to the pub together.

In the early Nineties I researched the future of newspapers and set up my own website called “News of the World Wide Web”. I learned html and basic web design and published my results online – what else? Few UK newspapers had websites then and the key question was whether they would give out their content for free or charge subscriptions. There was talk then of the “tablet” newspaper – a concept design I remember Knight Ridder had drawn up. It took 15 years, but the closest thing to their concept finally came to fruition with the Apple iPhone.

I took a career “diversion” into old media – political reporting for newspapers at Westminster – but I could have chosen at one point to have gone down the digital route. I’m glad I didn’t. And I’m glad I gave up newspapers in 2008 to pursue exciting new opportunities outside the Westminster bubble, because I sincerely believe that now is a fascinating time to bridge the divide between old and new media, traditional and digital PR.