{"id":31,"date":"2012-05-15T02:02:40","date_gmt":"2012-05-15T02:02:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/?p=31"},"modified":"2012-05-15T02:02:40","modified_gmt":"2012-05-15T02:02:40","slug":"twitter-tiptoes-further-into-the-media-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/2012\/05\/15\/twitter-tiptoes-further-into-the-media-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Twitter tiptoes further into the media business"},"content":{"rendered":"

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We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve made the argument before that Twitter is effectively a media entity<\/a>, distributing news and entertainment and other content to millions of readers in real time \u00e2\u20ac\u201d although unlike traditional media entities, Twitter does this with anyone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s content rather than content it creates in-house. So far, the company has shied away describing itself as a media company, or exercising much editorial control<\/a> over what it distributes, but there are some tantalizing signs that it may be moving in that direction. Could Twitter become a media player in its own right?<\/p>\n

One element of Twitter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s potential mission appeared on Monday with the announcement of a weekly curated email<\/a> that is designed to show users content they might be interested in from elsewhere in their social graph. The email is clearly an extension of the move towards curation that Twitter made when it acquired Summify<\/a> earlier this year \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and it both looks and sounds an awful lot like the missives that Summify sent out with similar highlighted content, a feature the company said was one of its most popular (News.me<\/a> offers a similar type of daily newsletter).<\/p>\n

Is Twitter hiring editors and producers to curate?<\/h2>\n

The second sign of what Twitter might have in mind came last week, when a job posting<\/a> started making the rounds of journalism mailing lists and Twitter streams: namely, an opening for a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sports producer\u00e2\u20ac\u009d who could help curate interesting news-related content around sports events<\/a>. A Twitter spokeswoman suggested that the job was just another part of the media-evangelism task force that works with the company\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s various potential media partners to highlight best practices \u00e2\u20ac\u201d in other words, nothing special.<\/p>\n

Still, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interesting to think about what might come next: Is Twitter planning to hire other types of editors in different fields? Does it want to try and create a BuzzFeed-type of offering, where it highlights interesting content being shared by users? The company isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t saying, but it wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be a crazy idea \u00e2\u20ac\u201d as we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve discussed before, people desperately need better filters and curation to sift through<\/a> the massive streams of information that are flowing past us all day every day, and Twitter is in a perfect position to provide them. But does it want to do that, or is it happy to leave that to others?<\/p>\n

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If it really wanted to, Twitter could not only use its own algorithms to generate aggregated content in interesting ways, it could start to accumulate a suite of tools that allow users and even journalists to do the same \u00e2\u20ac\u201d whether it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something like Storify<\/a> or Storyful (which has a paid-for Pro version that helps media companies verify and fact-check the content they are collecting) or another curation\/discovery service like Prismatic<\/a> or Percolate, or even a consumption and recommendation app like Flipboard.<\/p>\n

Being a platform is good \u00e2\u20ac\u201d but Twitter may want more<\/h2>\n

At the moment, Twitter seems to be trying to walk a tightrope of sorts<\/a> between being a media entity and being a platform that is used by other media players. Being a platform or a tool is good, because it means that the company can form all kinds of valuable partnerships with traditional media entities such as broadcasters and TV networks and movie studios \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the kind that Chloe Sladden, head of Twitter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s media group, has gotten a lot of attention for<\/a>. But platforms don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t always generate large amounts of revenue.<\/p>\n

Part of the sales job for the media deals it strikes with broadcasters is that Twitter makes a great \u00e2\u20ac\u0153second screen\u00e2\u20ac\u009d experience for things like the Olympics, etc. So media conglomerates can incorporate Twitter into shows like The X Factor<\/a>, and it increases the engagement between the audience and the content, and everybody wins. If Twitter were to start looking and acting too much like a media company itself \u00e2\u20ac\u201d producing content or curating it in such a way that it added a lot of value \u00e2\u20ac\u201d some media partners might theoretically see it as competition rather than a platform partner.<\/p>\n

In a sense, this is the same kind of tightrope that YouTube has had to negotiate: it used to be just a carrier of content, and most of it was user-generated and of little interest to major media players \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the only time they cared about YouTube was when it infringed on their copyright and they could launch a lawsuit. But then the network started creating its own channels and content<\/a>, at the same time as it was trying to sell the networks and studios on its value as a place for long-form video.<\/p>\n

Obviously, Twitter isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t likely to suddenly start producing movies or books based on tweets, so the competitive aspect at least for TV networks is minimal (which could be why that was the first place Twitter started looking for media partnerships). But when it comes to the kind of content that newspapers and magazines are interested in, Twitter looks more like a potential competitor \u00e2\u20ac\u201d especially if it gets really good at either aggregating\/curating information in real time and\/or recommending it.<\/p>\n

Post and thumbnail images courtesy<\/a> of Flickr user See-ming Lee<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

via paidContent http:\/\/gigaom.com\/2012\/05\/14\/twitter-tiptoes-further-into-the-media-business\/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+pcorg+%28paidContent%29<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve made the argument before that Twitter is effectively a media entity, distributing news and entertainment and other content to millions of readers in real time \u00e2\u20ac\u201d although unlike traditional media entities, Twitter does this with anyone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s content rather than content it creates in-house. So far, the company has shied away describing itself as a … <\/p>\n

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