Sunday, May 10, 2009

If you can't beat 'em, join em! Twitter in Newspaper?

As may have been previously known to my faithful readers, I love hockey. It's the coolest game on Earth. It's 20mph muscle meets unmovable object. So here we are in the 2009 NHL Playoffs, my beloved Islanders didn't qualify, so I've been rooting for the team my favorite hockey player is on - The Washington Capitals. (Ovi = MVP!)

What a fun team to root for! Seriously, well anyway, as you may know this a somewhat creative tech blog and I'm a big fan of Twitter. I'm a HUGE fan of Hockey on Twitter, as you can tell by the Hockey Twits and the The Twitter HOW-TO for Islander hockey fans.

I've been tweeting my hockey heart off for almost every playoff game this season, it adds to the overall experience of the game. It's instant feedback, hockey on twitter is a virtual stadium. More and more teams are officially joining Twitter to add value to their fan's experience online. You can't beat that, the Capitals even have their own web based twitter feed, and to my surprise so does the Washington Post.

This afternoon as I was tweeting away my new web site, I got a congrats from @kimsnotebook. Apparently at some point I tweeted to the Washington Post last night and I was included in today's paper along with several other tweets from the game last night. You can see it here. (I'm @thefredelement)

As soon as I saw that, my jaw dropped. For years print has been struggling with trying to stay relevant. Some newspapers want to start charging for online access, others are closing the doors and shutting down after years and years of providing excellent newspapers. The landscape is changing, with every new technological innovation traditional print media may find itself less and less relevant.

Kudos to the people at the Washington Post for embracing new technology and incorporating it in to their traditional news service. While this isn't groundbreaking, earth shattering or industry saving I think it's a step in the right direction.

Odds are I'll never read a copy of the Washington Post, I don't remember the last time I held a printed newspaper in my hands. That being said I'm not ready for print to die just yet. Something about being 14 years old and reading the sports section while eating a bowl of lucky charms is something everyone should be able to have a piece of if they want to.

Print are you paying attention? Integration = Salvation.

No comments:

Post a Comment