It's All About Twitter

Facebook. Myspace. Any instant messaging. Social networking is the craze worldwide. How many times do you go on Facebook throughout the day? Once? Twice? Ten times? It's okay, there are thousands around campus on Facebook at the same time you are.

Twitter, however, is a journalist's dream, more specifically a sports journalist's dream. If you have a Twitter account, you know what I am talking about. Along with Facebook, it is one of the most addicting social networking sites.

It is updated all the time. Every minute there is one, two or more tweets a person can read, depending on how many people you follow. I follow over 400 people including sports writers, friends, sports leagues, teams and athletes, coaches, magazines, newspapers and breaking news. I will never have a dull moment on Twitter.

You can follow some of the most famous people in the world. For example, Barack Obama is on Twitter. Other examples are Tiger Woods, Oprah Winfrey, Diddy, Al Gore, Ashton Kutcher, Eminem, Lady Gaga, Shaquille O'Neal and yes, Charlie Sheen. Sheen has created a trending topic on Twitter saying "#winning" after almost every tweet. He is a Twitter phenomenon.

Sports journalists use Twitter like no other people use it. I have been following No. 3 Oregon State baseball (@Beaver_Baseball), Oregon State softball (@OregonStateSB), No. 4 Oregon State gymnastics (@OregonStateGym) and all Oregon State athletics (@beaverathletics) all on Twitter. What can get better than that?

You don't need to read or watch the news anymore. Heck, if you don't want to see the highlights of sports games and just want to see the score, you don't need anything else besides Twitter. Do you want to know what your favorite Oregon State athletes are doing? You don't need to follow them around campus, you just need to follow them on Twitter.

Stephen Paea, James Rodgers, Ryan Katz, Carter Bell, Jared Cunningham, Leslie Mak and Olivia Vivian are all on Twitter.

Do I need to tell you any other great things about Twitter?

I almost forgot the best thing about Twitter: a person can only use 140 characters to share his or her news. You don't have to read a full article, like this one, to know what is happening in the world.

The world heard about US Airways Flight 1549 landing in the Hudson River by none other than a simple picture on Twitter.

Oh yeah, there are pictures too.

People think that it is just a whole bunch of Facebook statuses and nothing else, but those people are wrong. One can learn a lot about a person, an event and any news possible through Twitter.

Robert Scoble, a blogger for The New York Times, said it best: "Twitter lets me hear from a lot of different people in a very short period of time."

Laura McCandlish

A journeywoman who has been from Virginia to Baltimore to Corvallis to chase her dream of being a journalist.

Laura McCandlish talked to a reporting class at Oregon State University, Wednesday night, to discuss how she got into journalism and how important blogs are to her success.

“I knew I needed to start a blog,” McCandlish said. “I needed to get my foot in and fall back on it when need be.”

McCandlish offered her advice on how the audience could improve their writing and journalistic techniques. Some of her advice was to keep blogging, do not emulate other people’s career paths, get your name out there by social networking and when you blog, choose a specific topic you can be an expert in. For example, McCandlish was interested by the food here on the west coast and in Oregon, so she decided to focus her topic on food. Because of the blog, she has landed a radio show on KBOO in Portland.

McCandlish also asked the audience what they thought about one of her blog posts. She wanted to pitch it to NPR.org (National Public Radio) and McCandlish asked how she should pitch it. She was writing notes down when the audience answered.

A local shoe store, which is booming with their very small shoe soles, brings their families into the store, even their babies. There were a few ideas that she liked, which were unique to Oregon, but the family pitch stood out to the audience. The audience agreed that NPR would like that idea the best.

McCandlish kept giving the audience advice on how to blog and how to get your product and your name out there to the world. Blogging was her main emphasis, along with getting to know as many types of media you can.

“It is important to learn many different types of media,” she said. “Journalism is very unpredictable right now.”

Matt Neznanski

Matt Neznanski is the Director of Communications at Brass Media here in Corvallis, OR. Brass Media is a “socially driven media and technology company dedicated to helping young adults better understand money,” according to their website. Neznanski dropped by our reporting class Wednesday night to talk about social networking, his job and his background in the media world along with any questions our class had for him.

Earlier in his career, Neznanski worked in the news room and he first talked to us about having the chance to interview the 44th president of the United States, President Barack Obama, when he was in Oregon. Somebody in the news room asked him if he wanted to interview the president, and he said sure.

Neznanski is also all about Twitter. Twitter was the theme behind most of his talk Wednesday night and I agreed with what he had to say about it. He gets most of his news from Twitter, and he gets the rest of his news from other internet sites as well.

“You got to start a Twitter account,” Neznanski said. “Use all the tools you can.”

He talked about newschallenge.org as well. “The Knight News Challenge is a media innovation contest that aims to advance the future of news by funding new ways to digitally inform communities,” the website said. And its slogan is: “You invent it. We fund it.” The last four winners of this contest have been everyblock.com, spot.us, ushahidi.com and localwiki.org, with all the websites succeeding and doing well. If you have an idea, sent it to these guys and make some cash, Neznanski said.

Most of his talk was about social networking, blogging and being a journalist in general. He talked about how Twitter is more public than the internet and that micro blogging is not going anywhere anytime soon. He left us with a quote that hit me and stuck with me: “I think it’s a fantastic time to be a journalist,” he said. Neznanski attributed this to the quickness of the internet and that there are now so many different ways to be a journalist. It is not just newspaper articles anymore.

However, he will be the first to point out that “online journalism isn’t different from any other kind of journalism,” referring to the research you have to do to write.

Follow him on Twitter @mneznanski.

An Outdoor Game and a Trade Deadline

Yes, in fact, there was another outdoor hockey game this week and for the second time in its history, it was called the NHL Tim Hortons Heritage Classic. It seems to me that there is the NHL Winter Classic, which is played on New Year's Day, where two American teams play in the United States and the NHL Tim Hortons Heritage Classic where two Canadian teams play on Canadian soil. The first Heritage Classic was in 2003 between the Edmonton Oilers and the Montreal Canadiens at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton.

This year, the game took place this past Sunday at McMahon Stadium in Calgary between the Calgary Flames and again, the Montreal Canadiens. (Canadiens is spelled that way because that is the french spelling.) 41,022 were in attendance to watch a rather lackluster score of 4-0 for the Flames. The wind chill at game time was -5 degrees Fahrenheit, according to a video on Pierre Lebrun's blog. Lebrun also said that "the event once again rocked even if the actual game didn't, and the NHL has patented that familiar script with yet another hugely successful outdoor foray."

Mikka Kiprusoff got the shutout, saving all 39 shots he faced. It was the first shutout in the history of outdoor games and 39 saves is a new record in outdoor games.

Other records were broken. "The game set several records, including most shots by a player (Bourque, 11), saves by a goalie (39, Kiprusoff), and shots by a team in a period (21,Montreal), which broke the record set just a period earlier by Calgary," said Shawn Roarke, NHL.com Senior Managing Editor.

It is that time again, the trade deadline, where teams either stack up for the playoff run, trade players to get rid of player's salaries or trade for the future. Trades have already happened this week with 10 separate trades. The biggest one involved stud Czech defencemen Tomas Kaberle moving from the Toronto Maple Leafs to the Boston Bruins in exchange for Joe Colborne a first round draft pick and a second round draft pick.

The actual trade deadline is this coming Monday so get on your Twitter account or check out Trade Tracker on tsn.ca to find out who is going where and at what cost.

Islanders vs. Penguins

It was an eventful week with one game that blew away all the other ones: the New York Islanders vs. the Pittsburgh Penguins from Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum on Long Island.
The game, played on Friday, had one of the most penalty minutes ever in one game, 346. There were 15 players who had fighting penalties, combining for 75 penalty minutes and Brent Johnson, the goalie for the Penguins who fought Rick DiPietro last week, fought again against Michael Haley this game.
This fiasco happened because last week when Johnson and DiPietro fought, Johnson dropped DiPietro and broke bones in his face. The Islanders were mad about this and it led to the game Friday, a 9-3 beating by the Islanders.
Suspensions from the game were very harsh, however. “Eric Godard drew an automatic 10-game suspension under Rule 70.11 for coming off the bench to become involved in a third-period fight after New York's Michael Haley squared off with Penguins goaltender Brent Johnson. Godard received a double minor for roughing and a double game misconduct,” said NHL.com. Also, “Trevor Gillies was suspended for leveling Pittsburgh's Eric Tangradi with an elbow and throwing several punches to his head in an incident that led to the Haley-Johnson fight, earning a major penalty and a game misconduct. Tangradi left the game with concussion symptoms,” and “Matt Martin drew a four-game suspension.”
Godard, Gillies, and Martin also lost money due to their suspensions. Godard will lose over $40,000, Gillies will lose over $24,000, and Martin will lose over $41,000, according to NHL.com. In addition, the Islanders were fined $100,000 for their actions.
"The Islanders also must bear some responsibility for their failure to control their players," said Colin Campbell, the NHL Senior Executive Vice President of Hockey Operations.
To check out the fight and articles on this game, check out these articles and videos.

TWIH (Stolen from TWIB, This Week in Baseball)

Injuries were the main story this week in hockey.

The Pittsburgh Penguins are depleted at the forward position. With two of the league top forwards already out (Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby), the Penguins added to their injuries with Chris Kunitz and Mark Letestu. Those four accounted for nearly half of their goal production this season, according to John Mehno of the Observer-Reporter.

Another injury happened to a key player this week. Keith Ballard, a defencemen that the Vancouver Canucks signed over the off season, injured his knee Monday night and could be out 3-4 weeks.

"It was stiff this morning, (which is) to be expected," Ballard said. "After sleeping last night, it stiffened up. I've been here for a few hours today, doing treatment, and it's helped quite a bit. It wasn't bad."

With Alexander Edler and Sami Salo out with their respective injuries, the Canucks have injuries to three very important players in their organization. In addition, Andrew Alberts was hit in the throat by a puck in practice Tuesday. Alberts remained on the ice for awhile before skating back to the bench under his own power.

"It feels like on the back end, there's always somebody hurt. And today, in practice, another injury, fortunately it wasn't anything serious," said Canucks defenceman Kevin Bieksa, according to tsn.ca.

Talking about getting injured in practice, New York "Islanders goalie Kevin Poulin injured his left leg in warmups Tuesday night, temporarily leaving New York without a backup for its game against the Toronto Maple Leafs," said ESPNNewYork.com. He caught his left skate in a rut and awkwardly fell. Mikko Koskinen, a goalie from Finland who was playing because of injuries to DiPietro and Nathan Lawson, got the emergency start and made his NHL debut. He was the fifth goalie to play for the Islanders this season, according to ESPNNewYork.com.

It is approximately three weeks away from the NHL trade deadline and talks are slow between teams right now. However, the bigger story is the player who wants to come back.

Peter Forsberg is expected to play by the end of this week for the Colorado Avalanche, according to Zach Nichols of the Examiner. "The Avs may need Peter Forsberg to play sooner rather than later," Nichols said.

Lastly, check out these two videos from the past week. One dirty hit and one solid punch!

All-Star Weekend

It was the "long-awaited" affair between Team Lidstrom vs. Team Staal on Sunday. The final result: a very All-Star Game like 11-10 for Team Lidstrom including eight goals in the first period and eight goals in the last period. 21 goals combined is the fourth most in NHL All-Star Game history, as written by E.J. Hradek.

Again, this was the first All-Star Game to use captains and a draft. Nicklas Lidstrom, a perennial All-Star defenseman, and Eric Staal, the captain of the hometown Carolina Hurricanes, were the captains of each team. The game was played in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Also, a nice treat was given out to the last pick of the draft, the Toronto Maple Leafs' Phil Kessel. Kessel was given a brand new car and $20,000 to a charity of his choice. On a humourous note, a twitter account named DownGoesBrown said: "Phil Kessel wins a new car. It looks nice and it's really expensive, but it refuses to drive to the net."

I agree with another thing Hradek said. He said that if All-Star weekend continues with this format, "and I see no reason why they won't - they'd be wise to insist that one of the captains come from the host city. It creates a 'home team.'"

Do I like this format? Not really, but if it brings more fans to the game of Hockey and creates interest in All-Star Weekend, I am all for it.

According to nbcsports.com, it did.

"Luckily for the NHL, the weekend’s events produced great numbers in both the United States (on Versus) and Canada (on CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada)."

Lastly, a quick overview of tonight's action. In a wild one, no pun intended, the Minnesota Wild won 1-0 over the Los Angeles Kings. The Wild had a shutout on strong goaltending by Niklas Backstrom.

And the Vancouver Canucks have gained first spot in the NHL tonight with a 4-1 win over the Dallas Stars at the American Airlines Center. The Canucks scored twice on the power play with goals from Mikael Samuelsson and Christian Ehrhoff.