J-Department Joins Web Network Twitter
By Carey P. Fowler
Lemke Ledger Staff
In January the Lemke Journalism Department became a part of the new and growing social networking Web site Twitter in hopes of keeping students and alumni up to date on the happenings in the department.
Twitter is a real-time, short-messaging system that was started in August 2006 by Jack Dorsey in San Francisco. It allows people to follow news outlets, their friends, bands and much more. Twitter allows people to communicate over many different networks and devices. People can log onto Twitter from cell phones, computers or PDAs.
Twitter works by allowing users to post updates up to 140 characters called “tweets” that are sent to other members who have signed up to receive updates. Members can choose to only allow the updates to be seen by certain people or for Twitter’s entire population to be able to read them. Twitter is estimated to have 4-5 million users, according to Twitter’s home page.
Twitter has developed a large following since it started three years ago. It is the third-largest social networking Web site behind Facebook and MySpace.
Twitter’s key to success has been the simplicity of using it. Users simply have to answer the question “What are you doing?” with a short “tweet.” These answers can be sent by text message, instant message or the Web.
Corbin Otwell, a UA journalism student, is the Webmaster for Lemke’s Twitter. He hopes that Twitter will help students stay informed about what is going on in the journalism department. He said Lemke’s Twitter page is set up to be updated with the same stories that are posted daily to the department home page. Through the Twitter site, students can receive information on internships, scholarships and important dates and events.
As more students become involved with the department site, Otwell said he hopes that it will help students stay in touch with each other and get more involved in the department. He said he hopes that alumni also will get involved with it so that students can see what people have achieved after graduation, as well as help them meet contacts within the industry.The Lemke Twitter can be found at http://twitter.com/uarkjournalism.