Twits everywhere.

A social networking site or a news site?  Both in fact.  Twitter has revolutionised how people use the internet and obtain information.  With the number of users rising by 1382% in just one year (Feb 08 – Feb 09) it makes perfect sense to use it as a medium for news.

Considering the sheer size of the ‘tweeting’ population news organisations can reach a huge audience and people are really catching onto the phenomenon.  With the ability to link Twitter to sites like Facebook means that people need never miss a single piece of news if they so choose.

Twitter has moved from being about the user and their need to tell the world exactly what they are doing at any given moment in time in 140 characters or less.  Instead, Twitter is allowing people to access what is happening anywhere in the world that interests them.  If you want Irish news Twitter provides with the likes of The Irish Times or even more interestingly The Clare People and The Mayo News serving the local aspect of news.  Well almost.

For the lighter side of news, Twitter also hosts tweets from E Entertainment and TMZ.  The fact that you can choose exactly how you use you twitter is what makes it unique.  Buying a newspaper you are buying all the sections…news, sport, entertainment, business, travel etc.  Twitter is like taking a newspaper that caters only for what you want to know and find out about.   Several cases have been made for Twitter claiming that it is an invaluable news source to find out what people are talking about and are interested in.  For instance in this article, Twitter is hailed as extremely useful for sourcing news and also publicising.  The way of the future perhaps.

And what do you know, Twitter makes news itself.

Hyperlinking – a godsend or merely a distraction?

Hyperlinking allows bloggers to gain and salvage some level of credibility by supplying sources or information to back up their opinions.  Adding these links allow readers to gain background information or to see how you have reached your conclusion.  Links are vital to any blog but there is such a thing as too much.  Not only is it unsightly on a page but it can leave the reader wondering which way to go.

We all know this feeling.

Venkatesh Rao, a Ribbonfarm blogger, goes to great lengths to explain the hyperlink and its power.  As a non-native speaker, he explains the influence hyperlinking can have on an article by increasing its readibility and ease of understanding.

Sam Anderson dealt with the subject of distraction in an article and spoke of the benefits of distracion. In defence of distraction he said:

That famous cookie is a kind of hyperlink: a little blip that launches an associative cascade of a million other subjects. This sort of free-associative wandering is essential to the creative process; one moment of judicious unmindfulness can inspire thousands of hours of mindfulness.

It begs to question whether or not Anderson has ever sat down to catch up on some news and found himself viewing a page that he has absolutely no idea how we got there!  Clicking a hyperlink can often lead to navigation through a minefield of useless/unwanted/unneccesary information.  Hyperlinking is like a Mexican wave that leads to nowhere….but only when used incorrectly.  Brian Joura, who writes for Assoiated Content, spoke of the intrusion of hyperlinking.  In his case, Associated Content took the liberty to insert hyperlinks into words itself and this article is a tribute to a nice clean article.  Despite it looking nice, the article doesn’t really say anything really worth saying other than outlining his dislike of links.

The following video outlines a way that hyperlinks can be made redunant and highlights how the web and web browser can be used to make pages a little easier on the eyes.