Life's a Twitch, Part 3 (The Journalists)

Have you even written a feature or review of an artist or concert that was brought to your attention via Twitter?
@nightafternight: Not that I can think of offhand, no. But I'm absolutely positive that I have mentioned things on Twitter that led to others taking an interest and following up on those topics.

@anastasiat: I don't think anything has come *directly* out of Twitter as of yet, but it's been a good way of tracking live performances, chart position, newsy bits, fan response, etc..

@sethcolterwalls: No, not yet. But just to confirm what Steve said: I definitely learn a ton from the @nightafternight feed. And I think (slash hope) the same  sometimes occurs for others with regard to the things I tweet about. Newsweek multimedia exclusives like Reich's "Double Sextet" and a Sonic Youth mashup were both RT'ed a bit. And I'm told Vijay Iyer was a trending topic for a couple seconds, after I put a stream of his MIA cover on The Awl.
 
@gsandow: Well, I don't do much journalism these days. But I constantly learn about new things on Twitter, and meet new people. Example. I saw that a cellist named Peter Gregson was giving a solo concert at Twitter headquarters. It was short, of course, and the terrific program (mostly 20th century and new) could be written in 140 characters. I happened to be online when the concert took place, and watched the video feed. The guy can really play, so I DMed him and congratulated him.
 
That led to some further messaging. He's British, happened to be in NY the next day. We had coffee. Turns out he's an inspiring musician, in his 20s, with all kinds of ideas. This past summer he was hired by the BBC Proms to develop things on their website that younger people would care about, especially participatory things. He says the % of younger people in the audience kept rising as the Proms continued. He gives concerts in specially equipped spaces. The audience can text or tweet comments while he's playing, and the comments are displayed on a video screen. That leads to people talking back and forth about the concert while it's going on.
 
So Peter and I had coffee. The next day, he came and spoke to my Juilliard class on the future of classical music, where the students just loved him, and found him inspiring. Two days after I'd first encountered him on Twitter.


Would you/Do you follow Twitter feeds exclusively of media alerts?
@nightafternight: By this, do you mean a robotic feed? An anodyne presence like that of the Met or the Phil? Or an official channel run by an operator with genuine personality, like the LSO, ECO and Carnegie Hall (at its best)? I follow all of the above, but I respond best to the last category.

This also holds true for artists: Yesterday I signed up to follow one of my favorite performers, Shakira, then unfollowed literally immediately because I could see it was nothing but propaganda sound bites from an outside source. And Napalm Death I couldn't even bring myself to follow: The band joined Twitter in February, has racked up some 600 followers, and has tweeted (how I hate using that word) twice. I'd far rather follow someone sporadic but personable, like Danielle de Niese.

@anastasiat: Absolutely not. (See below.)

@sethcolterwalls: Media alerts? No. But general-audience concert or scheduling alerts? Sure. Those can be helpful

@gsandow:  I don't look at Twitter media alerts. I think they're lame. No personality. And no information that's new to me. Not what I'm on Twitter for. I don't want to hear that the XYZ Symphony is, yawn, playing Rachmaninoff. I want to get new ideas. And it happens.


Do you envision a world in which publicists and journalists will only interact on Facebook and Twitter, cutting press releases, follow-up e mails, and phone calls completely out of the mix?    
@nightafternight: Not really, not entirely. Phone calls are still extremely useful for nuance and detail, I find -- and yes, I'm talking about my dealings with publicists, not the interviews themselves. I don't foresee a word without press releases, though I could envision one in which I relied more on Twitter posts that linked to succinct web press releases, ideally rich with multimedia content.

If lacking follow-up calls just means that I'll be getting unsolicited DMs via a channel I still view as a precarious mix of public and private, I'm uneasy with that but could get used to it. The only DMs I actually resent are pitches that come from people I don't really know -- but the paradox is that no one can send me a Twitter DM unless I follow them in the first place. Knowing who to follow is a matter of experience and trust in itself.

Should we come to an all-Facebook scenario, I am in serious trouble. I am not now a participant in this particular social-media construct for one main reason: I reject the use of "friend" as a verb expressing agreeable contact. I know I'm picking nits; "follow" is not much better. But "friend" implies a relative interpersonal value judgment with which I'm deeply, deeply uncomfortable when we are all expected to navigate the increasingly fine line that is objectivity with due care and restraint. Believe it or not, that actually means a very great deal to me, despite the undeniable fact that I count several composers and artists among my personal friends.

@anastasiat: Oh good God, no--maybe it's just in my head, but I feel like that's crossing some kind of (invisible, arbitrary) line in the sand. My policy, as it is right now, is that I won't accept pitches via FB, Twitter, or IM. Personally, I really don't like being confronted all day long, at random & frequent intervals, with barrages of information and entreaties to cover something/someone, especially when I'm writing on deadline, doing an interview, etc. etc. etc. I suppose I could shut down the feeds/sites, but often I *am* using them to dig up info myself.

I suppose that's a matter of personal preference & time management (ha!) skills, however, and perhaps also partly attributable to the fact that I cover multiple genres--the number of publicists' lists I'm on grows exponentially for that reason.

@sethcolterwalls: We'll still need all those other things, I'm guessing, even if we grow to depend a bit more on social networking tools. However: can I say I dislike it when I approve a Facebook friend request from a stranger (which I generally do, 'cause once you're there, why not?) and then immediately find myself bombarded with press releases and invites to random shows? That's not fun.
 
@gsandow: No. Why would that happen? Seems to me we're developing more ways to communicate, not shutting down old ways.