As a journalist and social media devotee, my ears pricked up when I saw the tweets about Media140 coming to Sydney.
People I have admired throughout my journalism and blogging career will be speaking at the conference, which aims to find the answers to the question: “What is the future of journalism in the Social Media Age?”
ABC managing director Mark Scott @abcmarkscott, Sydney Morning Herald political journalist Annabel Crabb @annabelcrabb and columnist Mia Freedman @miafreedman are all people I have looked up to for years as a journalist.
They will be accompanied by social media experts I have also come to admire in the past few years, such as social media consultant Laurel Papworth @silkcharm, writer and broadcaster Stilgherrian @stilgherrian and fellow mum and journalism academic Julie Posetti @julie_posetti. I’m also looking forward to seeing my former journalism trainer Margaret Simons @Margaretsimons from my days as a Cumberland cadet.
I am thrilled (and a bit nervous) to say I will be live-blogging from this conference, so I hope my Twitter followers will be ready for the tweet onslaught on Thursday and Friday! I can’t wait to meet the journalists, broadcasters, social media advocates and media academics who will be attending and blog about their opinions. I’m anticipating a great debate between the media industry and social media advocates.
Media140 will look at social networking tools such as Twitter, live-blogging and Facebook and how they push media stories into real time during keynote speeches, panels, interviews, Q&A session and workshops.
More than 270 attendees joined the UK’s first Twitter conference when the first Media140 was held in London on May 20. Other Media140 conferences will be held throughout the world in Bangalore, Dubai, Rome and New York.
Media140 is an independent global movement formed by people from leading media outlets, universities, agencies and brands. The group creates multimedia events exploring the future of the real-time web and its impact and promotes “discourse, collaboration and innovation within journalism, media, advertising, entertainment, marketing, PR, gaming and technology industries”.
Media 140 will be held at the ABC’s Eugene Goossens’ Hall in Sydney. For more information visit http://media140.com/sydney/