Hello, social media

The times they are a-changin' -- finally, and for the better. It's your turn, social media, and I'll be tracking the latest developments with it and other new media in this blog.

And to embrace the idea behind social media, that your say matters, we'll be calling for your help on a way forward, so keep an eye open for calls from me for your ideas on CW initiatives. We're aiming to better engage with our readers and the larger social media world. And we're always looking for a better way to tell a story. If you see something you'd like to see CW doing, drop me an email at mike_barton AT computerworld.com or leave a comment.

Some things on my radar:

--CNET News.com's The Social blogger Caroline McCarthy noted last week that Reddit has struck a deal with PBS to fuel a new show, to be called Your Week, with -- what else? -- social media-driven story picks. Look out Diggnation? It will be interesting to see how PBS gets hip with user-gen news. I still laugh at how stuffy NPR sounds on air. But this deal does present an opportunity for CW to get play on TV for our excellent IT news coverage and perspectives on a wide range of topics.

And -- as promised -- a question for CW readers: What would you like our Twitter feed to look like?

Check out or test tweets...

-Should our tweets be our news and blog entries delivered by Twitter alone? CNET News is doing that. GigaOm's feed is a bit more conversational, I guess with its staff all on the one account? Or should we be sharing our chit-chats about the news of the day, and of course reviews, features and what makes CW tick, like Macworld edit director Jason Snell's Twitter feed?

I like the idea of being able to create custom feeds for people based on RSS (like we're doing in test mode now) but I'm not sure why you'd use Twitter and not just an RSS reader. While Jason Snell's friends and colleagues may want to read "what he's doing right now"-stuff, I'm not sure a bigger audience would. So I'm confused what we at CW could offer by Twitter that would be useful and interesting to you.

School me on Twitter, if need be. What am I missing here, if anything? If you are a mad Twitterer, tell me why. What do you get out of it? I'm thinking that delivering some news and blogs as they go live is good, IF topped up with early looks at news, feature etc from relevant editors, as well as highlights of goings-on from around the site and inside-stuff, such as discussions in our news room etc. We'd get a bunch of staff Twittering and I might prod it along.

But enough of me, and back to you: What would you like our Twitter feed to look like?