article

http://www.theguardian.com/media/media-blog/2014/oct/12/twitter-breaking-news-pr-vivian-schiller  

Can Twitter make money out of breaking news or is it a PR platform? 

This article is about a debate currently taking place on whether Twitter is just a platform for breaking news or the PR. The head of news and journalism Vivian Schiller has stepped down which is supposedly bigger news on Twitter than other news stories such as the spread of Ebola and entertainment news such as Xfactor. 

• Twitter over whether it should largely be a conduit for journalism or PR. And whether a technology company, even one with 271 million monthly users, believes it can make money out of breaking news. 

• The role of heading “news” now returns to Adam Sharp who will also continue to lead the “government” team, which sounds like a lobbying operation but is in fact the part of the company devoted to boosting the number of political decision-makers using the service. 

• Twitter has always seemed bigger than it actually is because of the type of people – celebrities, sports stars and politicians as well as newshounds – who use it 

• Twitter has behaved as any company with quarterly revenue and share price targets to meet has to and got rid of its most obviously loss-making ambitions.  

In my opinion Twitter is now a platform for various types of news, hard news and soft news as it the audience will always take to a social networking site to find out the latest news as it is a quicker way of finding out news. Therefore the PR is also a big thing for companies such as Twitter.