The capabilities and limits of newsfeeds as news sources

RSS and blgging were both declared dead yesterday. Paul Boutin is only the latest in a long line to toss dirt on blogging’s coffin in Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004; but the case of blogging as an old medium more suited for long-form journalism seems to be gaining currency:

The blogosphere, once a freshwater oasis of folksy self-expression and clever thought, has been flooded by a tsunami of paid bilge. Cut-rate journalists and underground marketing campaigns now drown out the authentic voices of amateur wordsmiths. It’s almost impossible to get noticed, except by hecklers. And why bother? The time it takes to craft sharp, witty blog prose is better spent expressing yourself on Flickr, Facebook, or Twitter.

Meanwhile, Steve Rubel says RSS, too, is , losing currency to the network and the newsfeed:

RSS has peaked….I believe that social network newsfeeds will become more a more prominent delivery channel over time. Newsfeeds elegantly combine peers and pros, algorithms and networks. They know no bounaries. Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb agrees. This is why social networks will become the primary theater for PR in five years time.

Of course, Rubel’s example of a news story he learned about through FriendFeed, “a campus shooting [that] has unfolded at Western Kentucky University,” (Rubel called “it a great example of where this is going”) may not have actually happened, it turns out. Note the more than a dozen comments bemoaning the “shooting,” appended by one note that “it’s unclear whether there was a gunman or not. It may have just been a fight.” Rubel has yet to correct his post.

[For a related post, see Blogs can be slow and wrong: Memeorandum and Ben Smith.]

Are some news events too much for Twitter?

Like many, I first learned about yesterday’s Chino earthquake via Twitter. I was taken by the discussions about how useful the service is for breaking news. Lots of folks agree with MG Sigler who’s excited about Twitter as a news tool:

It takes reporters time to set up and get the story, but Twitter turns thousands of regular people into citizen journalists — all of whom are on the scene.

His argument doesn’t contradict Sigler, but I lean more towards Josh Catone’s comments following the China earthquake (H/t @wmhartnett and @kev097.)

The only thing Twitter does better than the traditional news is speed. It doesn’t do depth, it doesn’t do fact-checking, it doesn’t do real reporting. It does breaking news…. The mainstream press should embrace Twitter and use it to source and enhance their news coverage; they should not worry about being outshined by it. Twitter will never outshine the mainstream press as long as reporters continue to do what they do best — get on the ground, talk to the right people, find out what’s really going on, and deliver what they find with as much depth as possible.

The discussion prompted me to wonder aloud about how Twitter might have played on 9/11, how our collective and individual memories would be different had we been reading 140-character reports on that sunny fall morning. My first reaction was similar to that of my two dinner companions, it would have been “grossly disturbing.” @ericagee responded that the recorded voice mail messages were enough to give her “nightmares for months.” Live tweets would surely have added to our picture of the tragedy, but would we be better for it?

RSS Feeds Better Then Cavemen

A few days into the new fall TV season and I’m with Kenyatta:

catching up on fall tv shows and rss feeds. so far the feeds are winning.

Somehow I was talked into watching Cavemen tonight. Chock-full of timely references that will appeal to the kids: Wikipedia, text messaging, the Wii and macchiatos. The only question I’m left with is it the worst show in the history of television, or merely the worst non-UPN show. Perhaps George Lopez has reason to be miffed.

In any case, Shasta McNasty has some competition.

Meanwhile, is twitter killing blogging?