BBC is all-a-twitter

Apparently Twitter's gone mainstream.

I'm not sure who decides when something has gone mainstream and how they decide, but anyway, the Wall Street Journal people think its their job and they say October 2008.

That's probably a bit early for the UK, but the BBC have no doubt helped in this respect with various mentions of Twitter on their output and general interest in how the Corporation is using this increasingly popular microblogging tool.

Not everyone's got the hang of it. Here's the BBC's Peter Horrocks, who, according to the Sun, made a 'Twitt' of himself (ha ha...not...ahem....not one of their best is it), by inadvertently publishing the results of a couple of job appointments.

Radio listeners appear to have been particularly exposed to Twitter talk. Jonathan Ross is on there; Radio Five live had a ten minute discussion on it one afternoon; there was a rant about Twitter on Fighting Talk the other Saturday morning; the News Quiz on Radio 4 did something on it; the Today programme are using it...I could go on.

This radio listener wasn't overly impressed. And a few other people are wondering whether the BBC might be spending too much time talking about tweeting.

After all, Twitter is a commercial enterprise and the BBC's Darren Waters is worried that 'if Twitter gets any more mentions on the BBC, we'll be accused of bias'. (Accusing the BBC of bias is something of an everyday occurence mind you. Here's the latest on the BBC's Middle East coverage for example).

Maybe the answer is for the BBC to make their own Twitter service. Although this will inevitably lead to further criticism that the Corporation is trying to takeover UK webspace. And at the moment, the BBC seems to be focussing on getting their own presence on Twitter in order.