I had an interesting experience last week as I was heading out to attend the Digital Fair at Geelong Grammar. I sent out a tweet saying I was about to leave and received a reply from Geelongaddy. Geelongaddy turned out to be someone from the Geelong Advertiser, the local newspaper for the Geelong area, and they wanted to talk to me about the upcoming Digital Fair.
A few tweets back and forth resulted in me participating in a phone interview where I was asked questions about the future of libraries and why we need to be aware of new technologies. The reporter and I shared a discussion about newspapers and their need to embrace online publishing in order to survive. I was extremely impressed that they were using Twitter to disemminate news about the Geelong area and that they were actively searching it to find reference to the Digital Fair. This proactive action enabled them to make connections with me, a participant and presenter.
They also interviewed Mark Pesce who delivered a powerful keynote about digital citizenship and how we as a society need to respond to the influence of the internet on our childrens’ and students’ lives. You can watch this keynote archived on his blog.
I’ve searched their site for the report to no avail. It may well be that it will appear later this week. I’ll post a link if it does.
*update. A couple of people have sent me the link to the article written by the Geelong Advertiser. No mention of me; guess that’s the nature of newspapers. You have to be newsworthy. Mark Pesce is, I’m not!
It seems to me that this is the way of the world now. Newspapers obviously need to react to our changing world and find a way to remain relevant. Looks like the Geelong Advertiser is on its way.
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Lucacept - intercepting the Web 
Hi Jen,
I saw the tweet about Mark Pesce at the Digital Fair (http://bit.ly/PJrIM) and immediately put out a retweet for people in my network knowing that many would be unlikely to read The Geelong Advertiser.
As someone born and bred in Geelong, I have been following @geelongaddy on Twitter for some time to catch all the latest news (how else would I know within moments that Cats player Cam Ling has a torn achilles!)
I also read a @geelongaddy tweet today which said they want to use Twitter to monitor paper sell-outs. So instead of being purely a newsfeed like some newspapers, they are trying to use Twitter in a more interactive way with the community.
I like what they’re doing.
Jodie
Me too Jodie. I’d be really interested to know if other regional or local newspapers are being as proactice. Thanks for leaving a comment and adding to the discussion.