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Seven days after his inauguration, Barack Obama held a closed-door meeting with the 178 Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives. But what he didn't know is that while he was speaking, they were Twittering - posting real-time reactions to their online Twitter profiles. Michigan's Peter Hoekstra called Obama's first address a "very impressive session," while Texas's John Culberson called it "noble but meaningless." And any reporter reading their Twitter feeds discovered some surprisingly honest reactions!

It's just the beginning of a new phenomenon that will change the face of journalism. Twitter has already reached more than 5 million users, according to Forrester Research, and they represent more than just a new audience. It also presents a new tool for gathering information and reactions, and it's a surprisingly personal tool for online promotion. Newspapers are threatened by competition from online news sources, but Twitter offers a way to re-join the conversation. Here's some of the most effective ways that journalists can use Twitter.

Follow That Congressman

TweetCongress.org lists over 135 Congressmen who posting to Twitter accounts. (John McCain has nearly 600,000 subscribers, but the second most-popular is Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill, with just 23,519.) The site graphs the growth in their subscribers over time, and offers statistics about their comparative popularity. But best of all, it allows searching for the profiles of local Congressmen, and shows how often they post.

This is just one example - but it offers two important lessons. Because Twitter is a new medium, it's still reaching a smaller audience. It's possible to find stories on Twitter which haven't filtered out to the world at large. And Twitter is a social medium - users can text to their profiles from a cell phone - so the updates are surprisingly candid. Because it's a new medium, the conventions are still forming...and inexperienced users will sometimes say more than they should!

Real-Time News Gathering

When an airplane crash landed in New York's Hudson river, it was Twitter that broke the news. Anyone in the vicinity witnessed the spectacular landing, and many of them instantly updated their Twitter profiles. Barely four minutes after the crash, there was an account from eye witness Jim Hanrahan, and another from one of the ferry boats rushing to the rescue. But it shows Twitter's potential for all major news events, transforming its users into crucial eyewitnesses.

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