Paper.li adapts its auto-tweet

 

Tweet Written by Danny Whatmough

My post yesterday about Paper.li generated a fair bit of reaction and so it’s interesting to learn today that the service has decided to withdraw its auto-tweet feature:

“We hear the complaints, and are looking into ways to satisfy paper.li users while reducing the spammy feeling for others. We are thus testing a new type of tweet. It doesn’t just say a daily is out – it shares the top story of the day. We believe such a tweet clearly conveys more interesting info for followers. It is quite close to a retweet really – so something that basically says: “this is relevant for me and the group of people I follow – you should probably read it too”.

Does this solution make it any better? A little, I guess, but I’m still not convinced that auto-tweets are the way forward. Whatever the effect will be, the information overload debate is certainly not over…

                
          
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  • http://www.grahamjones.co.uk/ grahamjones

    The reason we buy a newspaper, or read a news website, is to “get the news” or to find information we want to consume all in one handy place. So the notion of paper.li is a good one – except for one thing – lack of editorial control. People look at The Telegraph website or buy The Daily Mail or subscribe to PR Week, or whatever, because it provides good content – something which has taken much discussion and decision-making as well as re-writing by the editorial teams. To believe that simply by collecting some information sources in one place, without any kind of editorial involvement, is to misunderstand why we read newspapers and magazines. If all that a newspaper publisher needed to do was to print everything that their sources submitted they’d be making much higher profits. Gosh it would be heaven for Mr Murdoch – reduced editorial costs overnight.

    Clearly, it doesn’t work. Editors add value. That value is taken away with paper.li.

    If I want to have all the tweets in one place from information sources I value, I can do that easily with HootSuite or other Twitter management programs – which is why @dannywhatmough is in my “A-List”..!

  • http://www.dannywhatmough.com/ Danny Whatmough

    I totally agree Graham. Paper.li may offer a shortcut to some extent, but without human involvement, its ‘added value’ will always been limited.

            
        
 

About

This is my story. I've always been fascinated by the internet. My first passion was music and I studied a music degree at Birmingham University. But once graduated I quickly went back to the web working as a digital marketer. I also ran a web startup for a few years. In the need of a new challenge, I turned to the world of PR and now work as an Account Director at EML Wildfire. My interest is primarily looking at how PR professionals can make the most of the web and digital marketing. This blog contains my thoughts and things I find inspirational.

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