Don't Think Brand; Think Concept

The Death of Twitter was proclaimed from the highest and lowest media this week with the END OF THE WORLD announcements of:

A fine for a San Diego Charger carping about camp food in his Tweets

A dozen NFL teams attempting to declare Tweet-free zones around camp

ESPN issuing "draconian" restrictions on the "First Amendment rights" of its employees

As Darren Rovell said earlier this week, let's take them in order:

Antonio Cromartie gets hit for a $2,500 fine because he Tweeted that the Chargers served "nasty food." We're surprised by this?

Cromartie is a businessman, and his business is representing the San Diego franchise. If he said this to the San Diego Union-Tribune, would we believe the organization's reaction would have been any different?

He didn't get his First Amendment rights violated -- the reality is he never had them on this one anyway. I'd be willing to guess somewhere in his contract language, there's some clauses about adverse commentary on the organization. Perhaps a team rule or two. Or maybe, a little common sense.

When I write this blog, I do not presume that I can say anything about anything. The same would be true if I worked corporate PR at Wal-Mart (Facebook followers, help me out here). Or NWACC. Or the Northwest Arkansas Times.

You see, Twitter isn't without consequence. If you are a celebrity, whose job essentially is as an independent contractor toward the industry, one can take the time to contemplate one's navel all day long and rip the craft services trailer without fear of repercussion.

Let's go with a little further to our friends in Bristol, Conn. Every major corporation that has significant on-line presence now has a Social Media Policy for its employees.

Think ESPN went a ways in its? Have you read the Associated Press? Washington Post? These are media outlets whose stock in trade is A) information and B) reputation.

Be real about this. You have a contract to provide content to the World Wide Leader. Does it make sense that they would be OK with you sharing that for free? Or speaking against the company? Recon they'd just be fine with your tips to Deadspin? Hey Leather, I doubt it.

Now, does this mean it's the end of the Twitterverse? Hardly. In spite of the extremely snide personal comments of some colleagues both here and at another university, Real-Time Journalism is here to stay. The technology is not only that simple, it is that important. Oh, there's no such thing as "journalism" in a text message (BTW -- one must sneer appropriately while saying the word journalism in that statement).

Fine -- call it Real-Time Media, call it Instant Citizen Journalism, call it mobocracy; but don't you dare say there's no reportage involved. Twitter as a brand name will be as gone as MySpace and Friendster someday. Real-Time Media is here to stay.

Don't think so? Ask those kids in the streets in Teheran how important RTM was to not only their cause, but potentially their survival. How many more without Neda? I'll bet the ones from 20 years ago this summer back on Tianamen Square wish they had TwitPics.

So declaring a no cell, no Tweet zone around a NFL team (when, by the way, the league signed off on those 32 embeds for CBS and pretty quickly jumped on the teams for trying to shut down media members Tweeting) is not functional. Telling those employees of a franchise they can't be their own reporters -- not that different from telling them not to talk to reporters. In fact, kind of evens the playing field.