Twittering the traffic
By Steve Outing on Dec 18, 2007 in Blogging, Social networking
Over at STLToday.com, Kurt Greenbaum’s Twitter project is live: Today on Highway 40.
The idea is to use Twitter to document the driving and commuting experiences of people as a key arterial in St. Louis is closed for a long reconstruction period. Greenbaum, who is the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s social media director, recruited 10 people (plus himself) to use Twitter to file short (140 characters) reports about what they encounter in the weeks before the shutdown and the week after. The road closes on January 2.
Here’s the list of traffic Twitter correspondents, who have begun their short reporting assignment. You can read their reports on a special STLToday page, or on Twitter itself.
This will be interesting to watch. But I’m also looking out for a good example of using Twitter for a big fast-breaking story. I’m not sure how this will work for a more drawn-out story that can be planned for. It’ll work fine, of course, but will the content be interesting enough to engage the audience? Let’s see!
On Jan 11, 2008, shawn smith said:
YES YES YES YES!!!! Thanks Steve. This is exactly what I was hoping to hear at the Online News Association Conference, and didn\'t hear a thing about it. While the bulk of the news world is waking up to realize blogs are important, journalists need to get on board with web marketing. Social marketing has to become part of the job of content producers and sales people. Nice post on Poynter as well.
On Jan 11, 2008, laura bond williams said:
good stuff — but just want to point out that the term \"social marketing\" has roots much older and deeper than social media sites, so I found the use of the phrase here slightly confusing at first. lots of info at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_marketing