Many will think this is a story about Reggie Moore. It's not. It's a story about Twitter and an example of just what kind of influence it can have and how it's literally changing the nature of news.
I woke up early this morning and fired up the computer at about 6:30 a.m. to find this staring me in the face:
Of course, being the good Cougar that I am, the first that that went through my mind was OH MY GOSH OH NO NO NO NONONONONONNOOOOOONOOOOOOOONONONOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I then proceeded to get in the shower, thinking about how I'm going to quit being a fan forever if Reggie Moore transfers.
So, I posted a reply to Moore's tweet, figuring it wasn't really about transferring, but to tell him not to do this to all of us. Within an hour, alert reader Cougar_Patrick (@nwsportsnightly on Twitter) direct messaged me to let me know that Moore had sent out this tweet last night, which I hadn't seen:
So, now I'm wondering -- did he get some bad news with his knee? Is he having to decide whether to reconstruct or rehab? WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON WITH OUR STAR POINT GUARD????? Plus, the "T" word is still floating around in the back of my mind.
Apparently, I wasn't the only one. Within an hour:
And then, in response to Cougar_Patrick/@nwsportsnightly asking if he was talking about the knee:
Now, we still have no idea what he was referring to with that first message. And some people might think that Moore should have his Twitter privileges revoked for stopping our hearts about once a week with an ill-conceived tweet. But think about this: One of our basketball players put something out there about himself, we responded directly to him, and it was all cleared up in about an hour -- AN HOUR -- straight from Reggie Moore himself.
Not even Vince Grippi, who I know is trying to get more information on all of this, can operate that fast.
I don't know if Twitter is going to change the world or anything, but I do know this
- It's completely changed the way we receive our information (it now comes to us instead of us going to it); and
- It's completely changed the way we interact with people (celebrities, athletes, etc.) who once upon a time were completely beyond the reach of the masses.
If you haven't taken the plunge into Twitter yet -- either through fear of the unknown or because you think it's useless -- no worries. We're going to have a Twitter tutorial next week that hopefully will show you the full range of its capabilities and why it just might be a worthwhile endeavor for you to dip your toe.
You can follow us via Twitter @CougCenter and follow Jeff Nusser @NussCoug.