Social media platforms like Twitter are evolving beyond just text to incorporate additional multimedia content like photos, videos and interactive features directly within tweets. This allows users to engage with richer content without leaving the platform. For news organizations, it provides an opportunity to add revenue-generating features or e-commerce options directly in tweets while reducing click-throughs to external sites. Twitter is also developing new tools for curating tweets around live events that could position it as an event-focused destination site.

1. Social media:
What’s next for Twitter(+)?
Trends in Communication & Information Technology
JOUR 4871-003

2. How is social media different from
traditional media in the context of news?
1
2
3
4
5

3. 500 million+ active users worldwide
2.5 billion (approx.) people using the Internet
worldwide
400 million tweets per day posted (source: Gnip)

4. Revenue for Twitter
Promoted tweets
(aka, ads in your Twitter stream)
Licensing full Twitter
data firehose

5. Revenue for Twitter
Promoted Trend hashtag: $120,000
One allowed per day

6. New developments on Twitter
Expanded tweets
(view content without leaving Twitter)
"We want to migrate to a
world in which the 140
characters can serve as a
caption for additional
functionality," Costolo
said. "We'd like that to
include things like real-
time data, even an
application functionality."

7. Expanded tweets = New revenue stream?
Expanded tweets Can be interactive: e.g., live polls
(view content without leaving Twitter) for NBA All Star game showing
real-time results directly within a
tweet box
Or tweet about concert;
expanded tweet allows buying
tickets without leaving Twitter!
For news orgs, fewer click-
throughs to their sites
Furthers atomization of news
content
BUT, opportunity for media orgs
to add e-commerce, revenue
actions directly in tweet
Twitter likely to do this with
Sponsored Tweets

8. New Twitter development: #Event pages
Twitter as the event-news destination site ... Curates/aggregates best content from others.
Twitter now a news company? But it does not CREATE any original content.
http://twitter.com/hashtag/debates or http://twitter.com/#debates

9. Coming developments at Twitter
Working on live Twitter curation tools
(probably free to newsrooms ... by end of 2012)
Will allow users, including journalists, to manually
curate and display tweets to accompany breaking
news events

10. Evolution of tweeting (and beyond)
1) 140 characters of text
2) Text + links + photos
3) Expandable: click to
reveal image, headline/
blurb/link, etc.
4) Coming soon: Expandable with rich content revealed (don’t leave Twitter)
5) NEXT?: Video

11. Instant video sharing: Next big thing?
Simple to post video
clips (to Twitter, et al)
Instagram of video
Q: Will it catch on
the way Instagram
did?
Q: How could this
be used in news
reporting?