New media, meet Now Media

When I first got the job at Schnake Turnbo Frank | PR, I asked that my title be “New Media Director” instead of “Social Media Director,” just because it sounded broader and could encompass things like videos, pod casts and anything else that may be invented next Thursday.

Maybe I need to come up with something else – “Now Media Director."

That’s what I learned during the morning session of the 140 Characters Conference, where I have been invited to speak about how people in our region are using Twitter.

Through the first part of the day, the conference is incredible. I’ll have some videos up later today at STF |PR’s YouTube page.

Jeff Pulver, who created a little company called Vonage and moved on to invest in some of the top and hottest startups, came up with the 140 Characters Conference (watch the live tweet stream here.) He’s invited Tweeters from all over to talk about how Twitter and its offspring have changed the world.

That’s where we get “Now Media.”

“Search was always about what was recent and what was ancient,” Pulver said. “But now it’s about the now.”

“When you are living in the now, dealing with things in real time, the way you work changes.”

The idea is that Now Media is its own entity now. Real-time information sharing has evolved into something distinct from what TV, newspapers and traditional media are doing.

Look at what’s happening in Iran. People are using Twitter to share vital information and you see the changes as they’re happening.

Pulver was joined in the early session by Jack Dorsey, one of the founders of Twitter and Fred Wilson, a top venture capitalist, who talked about how to make money off of the Web.

To Wilson, the key to dollars from social media is passed links. These are shared links (retweets, reads you found interesting) that you get from people you trust. Those links have innate value because they come from people in your “network” of followers, friends, etc.

The big bomb Wilson dropped, based on the trending analytics of the sites he is a part of, was this declaration: "The combined power of Facebook and Twitter will surpass Google in the next year."

That’s a bold statement, but since Twitter is such a more intimate tool than search, encouraging sharing and recommendations, it has the power of people instead of algorithms behind it.

It’s about what you are reading NOW. What you find interesting NOW. And that’s how it’s become more than new media – it’s NOW media.