New and Digital Media Stories: Week 4

Article from The Guardian

The article summarises a new technological development within the social networking sites 'Twitter' which is the possible extension of character space for 'tweeters'. 

Quotes and Ideas include: 

• Twitter has struggled with growth and is still in the midst of a search for a new CEO
• Some people aren't fond of the proposition as they believe the limit is a good thing
• Twitter's most recent report is having 316 million monthly users - about one-fifth of Facebook's user count - and they are now looking for ways to increase that number, through advertising
• Brian Wieser of Pivotal Research said that the company are overperforming - "Show me another business growing at 70% year over year" ... "the problem is one of expectations, they're one of the top sellers of digital advertising on the planet"

In my opinion, I think that the word limit is in fact a good way to help regulate the posts in which people are tweeting. In particular, it forces individuals to think more wisely and carefully about what they are saying. Besides, the images and videos that have been added to tweets, provide users the opportunity to further enhance the point of each tweet. 

Article from The Guardian

The article introduces an audience to the podcast 'Reply All' which is a show about the internet and covers everything from conspiracy theories to heavy government assoicated debates. It is hosted by  PJ Vogt and Alex Goldman and has been around for less than a year, but has already become well known.

Key Quotes and Ideas: 

• Vogt and Goldman's intentions: "We were both fans of radio jounalism and internet culture and you didn't get to see radio talk about the internet at the level of familiarity that we liked"... "When it did cover a topic we were interested in it felt like there was  a lot of explaining it and not a lot of going into it. We thought there might actually be enough people as nerdy as us that could do it and it would work".
• They created 'Reply All' as a show aimed directly at "people as nerdy" as the hosts, featuring great stories and solid reporting.
• Their first story revealed the challenging reporting can be over the internet, where they had a problem with the formatting of the YouTube site.
• Reporting on the internet has certain challenges - occasional prank calls, some glitches.

In my opinion, I think that a podcast is a great way to communicate to an audience, like radio's once and still to some, do, in an efficient way. As most people have smart phones or internet access, audiences can select from a range of podcasts and listen to interesting debates and topics to learn new values and possibly global news.