Photo courtesy of dane brian

By Jenn Riggle

New research shows that in many ways, Twitter functions as an RSS feed or news service rather than a social networking site.

That’s not to say there isn’t conversation on Twitter, but a lot of people are sharing news and articles with their followers. In many ways, Twitter’s the thinking man’s water cooler.

Twitter followers register to receive updates and often have limited interaction with the person tweeting. By comparison, social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook require people agree to become “friends” before they share information with each other.

It’s interesting to note that Hitwise (a traffic and monitoring service) reports that more people get their news from Facebook and Google than Twitter. According to their research, Twitter represents only 0.14 percent of the traffic to news and media sites, while Facebook drives 3.64 percent and Google News drives 1.27 percent of their traffic.

Twitter may not be driving people to news and media sites because instead, it’s driving them to non-traditional news sources like the Huffington Post and blogs. In addition, the people who go to Google News and Facebook for news probably skew slightly older than Twitter users and are more likely to seek out traditional news sources. Or maybe Twitter users are used to skimming the headlines and only click onto the links that really interest them.

As a news junkie, this research validates why I’ve always felt drawn to Twitter and not to Facebook. It also explains why news stories like the US Airways Flight 1549 landing on the Hudson River (commonly known as the Miracle on the Hudson) spread so rapidly on Twitter and why traditional news media and public relations and marketing folks are drawn to Twitter. Their lives are inextricably linked to what’s happening in the news.

But it also poses a more important question: What does this mean for news media?

If stories break on Twitter first, traditional media can seem redundant. When I watch the 11 p.m. news, it’s often a rehash of stories that broke on Twitter hours before — along footage of the night’s shootings, fires and sports scores.

Rather than try to compete with Twitter, traditional news media needs to find ways to harness its interactivity. CNN has the right idea. At the bottom of the TV screen, they invite people to go to Twitter and Facebook to join the conversation and talk about the issues. Other times, they have a Twitter feed on large plasma screens in the background, which they reference during the show.

The Washington Post published a great article a while back that looks at how TV anchors are using Twitter to give behind the scenes look at shows like “Meet the Press.” But they also solicit questions for their guests from the followers, giving citizen journalist a whole new meaning.

The bigger question is how the newspaper industry, which is already facing huge financial hurdles, can use Twitter. It’s already using Twitter to drive people to stories on their websites. But why not ask people what they think about stories that impact them? Or ask them to report about traffic accidents on the highway? Or maybe have a gardening expert on Twitter who answers readers’ questions about things like why the leaves on their gardenia plants are yellow.

Twitter is a great way to whet people’s appetite for news and direct them to websites for more information. But it won’t stop there – with Twitter scooping stories, traditional media needs to find ways to integrate Twitter’s interactive capabilities and stay relevant.