The Conversation Continues

I found this really interesting post in the Daily Media News Feed, suggesting that the honeymoon may be ending for Twitter: we're still in love, but we're starting to see some faults.

(Side note, the Daily Media News Feed is an e-newsletter I subscribe to from Mediabistro.com. If you want to receive any of their e-newsletters via email, register for a free account at Mediabistro.com, then select the content you're interested in under the Login & E-mail Lists option under Personal Settings in your account. They have a ton of great stuff.)

Aaaand, we're back in.

This collective conversation should sound familiar—we've had it every time we've adopted a new medium or technology. What's the best, and most appropriate way to use it? And where to we draw the line?

So we're talking about Twitter facing praise and criticism, though in this article, it's largely about the criticism. I still think the whole there's-no-such-thing-as-bad-publicity theory applies here. It says, "Twitter reports that its number of active users grew by 900% last year, now totaling anywhere from 4 million to 6 million people." 900% is no joke. But the question isn't, has it caught on, but where do you draw the line between broadcasting/reporting and decency.

I'm sure it won't be long before the cries about first amendment rights echo through the cyberhills, but I think this is bigger than that. In a time when ideals are shifting and priorities have flip-flopped back to the basics, perhaps it wouldn't hurt to trend back to a higher standard of behavior. Just because we have a right to do something doesn't mean we should do it.

Is it an awesome sign of the times that governments are twitterering to the people? Hell yes, it is. The Israeli Consulate decided to tweet an international press conference. For me personally, since the peanut recall hasn't shown any signs of slowing down, I follow the FDA's recall tweets. It's pretty handy, and relatively uncontroversial. But what about live, micro-blogging a funeral? I ask myself who could possibly think it necessary, or even appropriate, to reduce such an intimately painful family/community experience to a series of play-by-plays. Clearly, common sense eluded one Colorado reporter the day he twittered the burial of a three-year-old.

Let's keep the conversation going until we all figure it out.