One journalist’s shift from Twitter skeptic to fan

From BeatBloggers comes one journalist’s journey from Twitter skeptic to Twitter fan.

Twitter, unlike a lot of other Web technologies, doesn’t always immediately make sense to people. First, people struggle with the 140-character limit. Even if a person grasps how to make a coherent tweet, Twitter isn’t particularly useful without followers and if a person isn’t following relevant people.

The value in Twitter is largely based on the quality of network that a person can set up. Following the right people is key. Getting the right people to follow back is also key.

Political reporter Alex Roarty has been on Twitter for months. At first, it didn’t make that much sense to him. It seemed like more of a toy than anything else.

A few months ago, however, he took a new job with PoliticsPA and decided to start a new Twitter account for his new job, @politicspa. He still hasn’t found much value in his personal account, but his work Twitter account has become central to his job.

Roarty has gone from a Twitter skeptic to a Twitter believer. Why? Because he now finds a lot of value in Twitter.

Q: Did it offer any real value when you first signed up?

A: Well, its a good way to get your name out there to some people — and every person counts when you start. But when just 25 people are following, it’s not that big a deal. Truth be told, even with 225 people following now, that’s not a huge number, even for a niche Web site.

Q: You recently told me your views on Twitter changed. What’s different now?

A: Well, I think the bottom line for Twitter is how many useful, from a professional perspective, people you follow, and how many follow you. Once i got a couple of hundred people following, that’s when I started seeing consistent retweets of messages I wrote. And also very importantly, people responding to me, asking questions, criticizing stories, etc. The other genuinely surprising piece of this was how much Twitter keeps me up-to-date on what’s going on.

Just in the last week I’ve come to realize it’s almost more valuable than Google Reader. Part of that is I’ve been so incredibly busy since Arlen Specter switched parties that I’ve barely had time to look through my RSS feeds
but Twitter is easy, even without twhirl or tweetdeck — just the web

Q: How has your view of Twitter changed over the past few months?

A: I think it’s gone from something that was more a toy that I played around with to something that’s fairly central to what I do.