Did quite a bit of talking with Vadim Lavrusik for a fairly long article on “10 Ways Journalism Schools Are Teaching Social Media” in Mashable which also features Jay Rosen, Jeff Jarvis, Sree Sreenivasan, and a couple of others. Very good company and some very good ideas for teaching.

More locally, The Daily Tar Heel has a nice story about how UNC Health Care has been using Twitter including their tweets during a surgery (Note: the DTH calls this “live surgery” as opposed to “dead surgery”? Isn’t that an autopsy?). I get a couple of expert lines which are slightly on topic. Basically I describe a “thick tweet” here: “Jones said the ingredients to an appealing update include mentioning someone else, featuring a link and adding a picture or video.” And I state the completely obvious:

Paul Jones, a journalism professor at UNC who has one of the most followed Twitter accounts in the Chapel Hill area, said gaining followers on the site requires posts that grab readers’ attention.

“Keep adding value, give people a reason to follow you,” he said. “The only people who will follow you are the people who want it.”

On another Twitter front, I did a little bit — not sure how much will be used — for WCHL about Twitter and Iran. In the parts selected I talk about how Twitter is difficult to block because it can be sent by cell, SMS, satphone, or a variety of internet protocols and interfaces (I did point out that the WTO protesters were hit with a total communications black out somewhat successfully) and later I talk about the social contract between social network service providers and their users and how users are free to leave and often do.