VergeNewMedia.com, a private venture by two NBC reporters is about the most interesting reporter/twitter listing in Twitterholic’s top 100. This ranking includes only a handful of other media outlets, notably The New York Times, CNetnews and the BBC. Checking out VergeNewMedia’s tweet and website, I immediately was intrigued. The two guys running it are totally business adept but there’s a recognisable journalistic tone to their output.
The company targets new niche reporting and makes enthusiastic use of tools like Twitter. At this moment the two of them are on a trip with President Bush through the Middle East and Africa. “My job with NBC News allows me unique access to history and I take advantage of these moments to share what we’re covering with friends on Twitter”, Jim Long writes in his blog. “There are so many behind-the-scenes moments I like to share, that if you follow me there, you’ll know I can get a bit breathless with my dispatches.”
So what is Verge New Media all about? It’s a small, agile, new media company that creates and distributes niche-market, online content. That is, if the two owners happen to be in countries where governments don’t interfere. On their first MidEastern stop -the United Arab Emirates- they found out to their horror that Twittering is ‘haram’;
“We apologize the site you are attempting to visit has been blocked due to its content being inconsistent with the religious, cultural, political, and moral values of the United Arab Emirates.
- page that loads when attempting to access Twitter from UAE”
But judging from the tweets they sent from the next country, Saudi Arabia, not too much was lost because their NBC tv crew only really got rolling later. (also see the picture).
Whether the tweets are also published on NBC is not certain; I can’t find it back on the NBC news pages but the Twitter activity is something that the two reporters are serious about; “We stand at a tipping point in the media world. Existing media models, weighted on the side of big corporations, big finance, big hits, and big stars are crumbling around us. The pendulum has swung. Now, trend spotters, micro-celebrities, and the new influencers are using the power of social networking, syndication, and online distribution to aggregate audience and leverage their value. As audience moves further down the “long tail”, Verge is uniquely positioned to take advantage of these seismic shifts, by connecting old media experience with new media vision. Currently, Verge New Media is developing highly targeted video content and is bullish on the growth of internet TV,” the message on their website reads.
The company is definitely one to keep a track of. Its very existence clearly signals that people are out there that have great ambitions for incorporating Twitter with reporting. I hope some of you will pick up on this and see if I can contact them for a profile.