Twitter, Character Counts, and Geocoding

It's been a while since I posted about Twitter, not because I haven't been paying attention, but because whatever the latest techno-crush is for other journo-bloggers tends to make me nauseous.

But today, at breakfast at Mel's on Geary in the Richmond District with a couple of non-journo friends (and my ten-year-old daughter), it struck me that a convergence of technologies is occurring that may hold all kinds of hope for the future of journalism.

First, Twitter. On top of the other contributions to community-building that this micro-blogging platform provides, two days ago news broke about Twitterlocal, which enables users to sort Tweets by locality.
Second, as anyone using it knows, Twitter imposes a character count on posters, and my fellow breakfasters and I were discussing the merits of this limit on communication. Limits help writers distill their ideas to the essence of what they want to say.

Thus, if you ask those of us who have been active in journalism for decades which skills we are proudest of, we are likely to mention our headline-writing and caption skills, not to mention our ability to create great PQs (pull quotes) and other display text.

Third, given my fascination with the potential of "hyper-local" content as part of the new business model that will sustain journalism, Twitterlocal is truly my kind of app. Check it out. (p.s. You can download it for free.)