I'm back from a year in Silicon Valley, and ready to start a new column for The Charlotte Observer. Here it is.
No, wait. It's on Twitter. No, it's on Facebook. But it's also in the newspaper. It's all of the above.
This is a new kind of column. It's on social networking, and it's in social networking.
Why is social media the topic? Consider: 1. More than 400,000 people in greater Charlotte are on Facebook. 2. Businesses in the Queen City are flocking to Twitter. (BofA has reserved eight spots at an upcoming social media conference here). 3. And in Silicon Valley I studied the biggest movement in media up close.
Here is a photo I took at Twitter HQ in San Francisco, where the staff of 50 eats catered breakfast and lunch on china each day. (It's a recycling thing.) Employees lounge on couches in the lofty office and hold impromptu meetups with their tiny laptops. And another photo I took at Facebook, where the average age of an employee is 26, and the health benefits fair had a pirate theme.
I'll talk more about my experiences studying social networking as a Knight fellow at Stanford University. But mostly, I'm interested in you. How do you use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and the rest? I'd like to talk with you there, on those sites. To me, the dialogue is the great benefit of the social media revolution. The best of that dialogue will move here, for daily analysis and more patient discussion. My column @work will appear Thursdays on the Business page. And @play will appear Fridays on the Local front.
Welcome to my new column. Or should I say our new column. See you online.
