peterwknox: @SportsGuy33 aka Bill Simmons uses Twitter to give us a LIVE running diary of the Celtics game and it’s infinitively more entertaining than reading something 12 hours later. I agree. His writing is obviously more polished when he can tweak it overnight before publishing it, but the immediacy is really addictive. I wouldn’t be happy if this became his exclusive medium, but it’s an incredible complement to his long-form pieces. A little like how my iPhone camera is sufficient in 80% of the situations when I used to endure an overly bulky pocket to tote my Canon PowerShot around. It’s also made me realize that there are some authors I’d pay to follow. If Simmons simply protected his account, and charged me to let me in, via PayPal, I’d pay. Clearly, there are a few kinks you’d have to work out to avoid piracy, but the same is true of music and people are willing to pay for it. If Twitter created their own platform for pay accounts, and allowed authors to set their own recurring charges, Twitter could retain a transaction fee, and the market could decide whether or not folks were worth following. Celebrities like Ashton Kutcher could funnel their (potentially optional) fees directly to charity, too.

peterwknox:

@SportsGuy33 aka Bill Simmons uses Twitter to give us a LIVE running diary of the Celtics game and it’s infinitively more entertaining than reading something 12 hours later.

I agree. His writing is obviously more polished when he can tweak it overnight before publishing it, but the immediacy is really addictive. I wouldn’t be happy if this became his exclusive medium, but it’s an incredible complement to his long-form pieces. A little like how my iPhone camera is sufficient in 80% of the situations when I used to endure an overly bulky pocket to tote my Canon PowerShot around.

It’s also made me realize that there are some authors I’d pay to follow. If Simmons simply protected his account, and charged me to let me in, via PayPal, I’d pay. Clearly, there are a few kinks you’d have to work out to avoid piracy, but the same is true of music and people are willing to pay for it.

If Twitter created their own platform for pay accounts, and allowed authors to set their own recurring charges, Twitter could retain a transaction fee, and the market could decide whether or not folks were worth following. Celebrities like Ashton Kutcher could funnel their (potentially optional) fees directly to charity, too.

peterwknox

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