Hey, if anyone can say it, I can. I am the older brother after all.
But our Twitter experiment at the RAB using Paul as a guinea pig worked well. It was a challenge for Paul to summarize the goings-on in 140 characters or less.
But it occurs to me that once you get beyond your Senator or Shaquille O'Neal or Dave Matthews, do you really care all that much about who's sending out tweets?
Clearly, however, this application – coverage from a convention that more people shoulda coulda woulda attended, but didn't – is clearly great on Twitter. It's interesting to see some real time comments from the convention floor to the sessions to the bar. OK, maybe not the bar.
Now, I'll let Paul give you his impressions of tweeting for a couple of days…
1. Compressing thoughts into 140 characters is really hard, especially for a long-winded consultant.
2. While I don't think anyone really cares about what I ate or who I ate with, I do think that Twitter is an excellent way to share top-line observations in real time – even if you weren't here in Orlando, you were hopefully able to get a sense of what was going on here as it was happening.
3. Screw-ups, great events, and everything in between are immediate – I made comments and observations while people were speaking/presenting. You knew about it and responded before they were even done with their speech. It's pretty easy to see why newspapers and other media who rely on the printed page are in deep trouble. And unlike television, which needs to have video in order to tell stories (which takes time), Twitter literally takes time out of the equation – you read about it as it happens.
4. iPhone has GOT to fix their keyboard function. Or I've got to get smaller thumbs.
I think we learned a lot here about what to do (and what not do) with Twitter. I'd like to hear your thoughts. To me, stations should use these at big events, concerts, remotes, and even from the studio when there's a live guest. It provides immediate color and adds to what is coming out of the speakers. It draws people closer to you, and they feel engaged even though they aren't there.
And most importantly, it's pretty easy. Anyone can do this.
Jacobs Media has consistently walked the walk in the digital space, providing insights and guidance through its well-read national Techsurveys.
In 2008, jacapps was launched - a mobile apps company that has designed and built more than 1,300 apps for both the Apple and Android platforms. In 2013, the DASH Conference was created - a mashup of radio and automotive, designed to foster better understanding of the "connected car" and its impact.
Along with providing the creative and intellectual direction for the company, Fred consults many of Jacobs Media's commercial and public radio clients, in addition to media brands looking to thrive in the rapidly changing tech environment.
Fred was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2018.
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