If you’ve landed on this page, you most likely have just signed up at the main ReporTwitters.com website and are wondering why the hell you did that for. To be honest, we ourselves have little idea what will come of this venture. We launched in September 2007 and at the time everyone out there agreed that the combination Twitter-Journalists-Reality Style Reporting is the next big thing in online reporting.
That is still very much the standard opinion but the ‘submit articles accompanied by cut and past tweets‘ feature on our site is simply just not producing stuff that newspaper editors are even vaguely interested in.
So we’ve held off marketing to the big boyz and girlz in the media. Instead, we’re devising niftier, better ideas. Projects that allow newspapers/radio stations to interact with their audiences in ways that they haven’t figured out yet. You would be surprised to find out how little aware the established media are of new online trends; outsourcing the creative ideas is beginning to become big business.
So how is this going to materialize? This is where you come in! We’re all crammed together in a non-functioning newsroom (not a unique situation) and what all of us have in common is that we are professionals using Twitter, an open API tool.
Of the 70+ ReporTwitters members, most people are in some sort of journalistic/ marketing/ creative/ programming role. There are a few travellers, photographers, two architects and even two cool hunters as well.
The best self-organization of this bunch will occur around good ideas to get better Twitter tools in the media/marketing/world at large. Three people already are collaborating on creating cool applications to connect Twitter with media audiences. Let’s get more such projects going! How about recasting reporTwitters as people that spot cool Tweets on events just like the photo sites allow you to upload good photo material? We only need to get organized, and hitch up with the likes ofTweetmeme to create something!
If you have a Twitter-based idea and are looking for partners, there are a number of things you can do:
-Check out people’s profiles on the main ReporTwitters site.
-Look us up on Wired Reporters and participate in the conversation.
-Check out our Facebook group and message everybody there. (This is a limited version of the 70+ members you’ll find in the newsroom.)
-Send me an email (info at reportwitters dot com). I have everybody’s details handy and will be able to find the skills/people you’re after quickly.
-Write a guest post for this blog, featuring your idea. Even if you have an idea for which you don’t immediately have the skills, chances are that you’ll find your perfect partner roundabouts this site. The blog automatically gets imported on the Facebook group too.
-Talk to your boss about reporTwitters and launch a project at work, collaborating with someone you networked here.