Is Twitter just Reuters of the Digital Age?

An interesting article appeared in Gigaom a couple of weeks ago on how Twitter is developing compared to other social network sites.  They argue it’s hard to have a conversation on Twitter – therefore it’s not a social media network but more of a news communications tool – I tend to agree. Whether it’s news being shared between particular communities all with something in common or a big news story breaker – it provides latest information in a sound bite way.  If you try to hold a conversation on Twitter, you quickly give up as the number of characters simply doesn’t allow for it.  So it’s not really a conversation tool, Twitter’s more about sharing points and latest info. It allows users to send information quickly to a large group of followers whether those followers are looking for personal updates or details about a news event like the earthquake in Japan.

Quite rightly Gigaom asks is Twitter in reality the Thomson Reuters of the digital age providing an information service that advertisers and knowledge workers are willing to pay substantial sums for. I think it’s more interesting than that, but we shall see.