Comments on: To the BBC and others: Twitter is not your competition http://gigaom.com/2012/02/08/to-the-bbc-and-others-twitter-is-not-your-competition/ Wed, 19 Jun 2013 13:35:41 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Mathew Ingram http://gigaom.com/2012/02/08/to-the-bbc-and-others-twitter-is-not-your-competition/#comment-807709 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:30:09 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=482548#comment-807709 Thanks for pointing that out, Andy. NPR has definitely embraced that role, which is great.

]]> By: Andy Carvin http://gigaom.com/2012/02/08/to-the-bbc-and-others-twitter-is-not-your-competition/#comment-807533 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:48:05 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=482548#comment-807533 At NPR at least, there’s no ignorance towards what I’m doing. They actively support it, as they do for other NPR staff comfortable using social media as part of their work.

]]> By: Mathew Ingram http://gigaom.com/2012/02/08/to-the-bbc-and-others-twitter-is-not-your-competition/#comment-807523 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:14:38 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=482548#comment-807523 Thanks for the comment, Chris, and for the clarifications — but if you want to reach your audience as quickly and efficiently as possible, then why not use Twitter to its full potential? If there aren’t any fact-checking or competitive issues as you say, then why hamstring your journalists by making them file to your internal system first?

]]> By: Bret Bernhoft http://gigaom.com/2012/02/08/to-the-bbc-and-others-twitter-is-not-your-competition/#comment-807394 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 06:22:02 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=482548#comment-807394 Chris, I am curious about how you found this article. Are you using Social Media Monitoring technology or was this passed on to you by someone you know?

]]> By: Chris Hamilton http://gigaom.com/2012/02/08/to-the-bbc-and-others-twitter-is-not-your-competition/#comment-807262 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:18:43 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=482548#comment-807262 Thanks for the considered post, and great linking. But just to clarify a few things…

We’re not looking for “breaking news to be processed through [our] existing news system so that it reaches BBC viewers and readers through [our] channels and sites rather than on Twitter”.

What we’re aiming for is breaking news to reach our often large audiences on a wide range of platforms – Twitter, other social networks, our own website, continuous TV and radio news channels, TV and radio bulletins and programmes across several networks – as quickly and efficiently as possible. Equally that we can deploy the resources we need to tell that story on some of those platforms – reporters, TV trucks – as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Those are the drivers – not a desire to have news checked first by an editor before a journalist can tweet it, nor “competitive issues”.

Key to this is the technology we have that allows our journalists to get text into the BBC newsroom system and to their own Twitter accounts at the same time.

However, when the technology isn’t available, for whatever reason, telling the newsroom before sending a tweet is prioritised – *that’s* when we’re talking “a difference of a few seconds”.

Like many other news organisations, we see the value of having journalists who become sources of news for their followers, and this guidance isn’t incompatible with that.

Final point – this guidance (and in fact my own role) relates only to BBC News, not the BBC as a whole.

Chris Hamilton
Social Media Editor, BBC News

]]> By: Mathew Ingram http://gigaom.com/2012/02/08/to-the-bbc-and-others-twitter-is-not-your-competition/#comment-807246 Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:37:59 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=482548#comment-807246 I think that the BBC, like a lot of other traditional media entities, probably has a number of camps inside it when it comes to Twitter and other social-media tools — some who see opportunity and others who see nothing but a threat or potential negative impact.

]]> By: Bret Bernhoft http://gigaom.com/2012/02/08/to-the-bbc-and-others-twitter-is-not-your-competition/#comment-807244 Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:30:28 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=482548#comment-807244 Don’t be so certain about some sort of apathy or ignorance in legacy media when it comes to social media. The issue is front and center for every traditional outlet. What we are seeing are the outcomes of their choices concerning how they use this new technology.

]]> By: Bret Bernhoft http://gigaom.com/2012/02/08/to-the-bbc-and-others-twitter-is-not-your-competition/#comment-807241 Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:26:56 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=482548#comment-807241 Matthew, do you think that the BBC made a calculated or a more “this is just the way it’s been done for 60 years” kind of decision in restricting the flow of information to Twitter? Either way it will be interesting to see wether this decision is part of a larger strategy.

]]> By: Ulrike Langer http://gigaom.com/2012/02/08/to-the-bbc-and-others-twitter-is-not-your-competition/#comment-807236 Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:17:28 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=482548#comment-807236 Many legacy media don’t seem to come to grips with the communication shift that comes with social media. Journalists like Brian Stelter or Andy Carvin or Matthew Ingram – we think of them as their brands in their wown right first, and then of the news entities NPR, News York Times, GigaOm which they stand for. But at least, these three media entities don’t seem to have a problem with that shift, because of the value created from their reporters being an important part of the conversation and ultimately drawing more readers to the website.

]]> By: Mathew Ingram http://gigaom.com/2012/02/08/to-the-bbc-and-others-twitter-is-not-your-competition/#comment-807234 Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:16:20 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=482548#comment-807234 I agree the BBC has been smart in many of the things it has done with Twitter and other social-media tools, Matthew — which is part of the reason I think I and others hold them to a higher standard. Thanks for the comment.

]]>