Via the Danger Room, I learn that the U.S. military has embraced Twitter in Afghanistan--to post tallies of enemy dead:
If prevailing wisdom about "population-centric" counterinsurgency holds, why is the U.S. military using Twitter to post body counts? Apparently, it's about maintaining the support of the population back at home.
At the media conference I attended yesterday, there was much chatter from the panel members--including the editor representing the WSJ--about how they liked using Twitter as a "curator" of the news. In a similar vein, one of the conversation themes revolved around finding "what readers are interested in." No doubt that's important but it becomes problematic if newspapers start to follow the methodology Nick Denton uses to shape Gawker content, which is to measure the page views of its most popular content. For example, Denton, the founder of Gawker and a panel member, said he discovered that posts of ivy ...
