Twitter takes on the Advertising world

For the first time tonight, I decided to review an article from a major online news source that wasn't Australia-centric.  After viewing The New York Times, I came across this article discussing the announcement of advertising plans over the last few weeks by the microblogging platform, Twitter.

The first thing that struck me about this article was the length.  At over 1,100 words, it's nearly double the average online article length.  Secondly was the depth of reporting.  For an article covering a social media platform's use in advertising, the journalist had really provided a well rounded story.  Within the major Australian online news sites that I have reviewed so far, such an article would never have received such attention.  As can be seen from my review yesterday on the article by news.com.au, Digital Advertising and technology stories have been treated largely as overview articles.  Very little in-depth reporting with clearly a large amount of the story pulled from one official source.  I have usually had to go to blogs such as Mashable or Gizmodo to find detailed stories on digital technology.

Here, however, the journalists have gone to great lengths to provide a very objective story.  They have gained quotes from a number of reputable sources, citing several digital strategists from very well-known world-wide advertising agencies, such as BBDO, which really cements the credibility of this story.  It is very clear that these professional journalists working for such a reputable paper have considered the "Who, what, where, why, when" of journalism, thus resulting in a very readable article.

One may argue whether this article is really newsworthy or not.  "Advertising breaks it's way into another part of our lives".... just for something completely different.  However, I do believe it is very newsworthy; niche news, yes, but newsworthy none the less, particularly for the advertising industry in which I work.  It is quite controversial within the industry, as Twitter is definitely a "buzz" word for clients, most advertisers are unsure how to utilise Twitter effectively, and there is quite differing opinions as to whether it is even effective or not.  Additionally, they journalists have chosen a very current topic, therefore, through these items alone, the article presented is a very newsworthy one for the advertising industry.