Pogue’s Primer on Social Media

By Nick Seaver, July 8, 2010

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David Pogue, the technology writer at The New York Times, used last month’s announcement from the Times‘ standards editor that reporters shouldn’t use the word “tweet,” to provide a basic primer on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Foursquare, and Yelp.

Pogue writes (and his point on “jargon” applies beyond techies to every field—especially health and science):

That the Internet’s reaction was so swift and harsh only proves the point: the techno-savvy population can’t even conceive of the existence of a less savvy crowd. If you use jargon every day, you can’t imagine that millions of people have no idea what you’re talking about.

I do a lot of public speaking. And even today, when I ask my audience how many know what Twitter is, sometimes only a quarter of the hands go up.

The response depends a lot on where I’m giving the talk and the audience’s age.

But one day it occurred to me: how would they know? All of these buzzy social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter sort of crept up on us. The government never mailed fliers to every household explaining what it’s all about.

Read his full primer here.