Hello, and thanks for visiting my infrequently updated personal blog (read the latest entries). The odds are good that you arrived at this welcome page by clicking the link on my Twitter profile. This is my primitive method for tracking traffic from that page.
My name is Patrick LaForge. I have been an editor at The New York Times since 1997, after a dozen years as a reporter and editor at newspapers in upstate New York, Maryland and Pennsylvania. I started using Twitter in early 2007, when Sewell Chan and I created the City Room blog for The Times. In May 2009, I left City Room and the metro desk to become the editor in charge of the copy desks.
How I Use Twitter
I generally post updates about Web content I am reading, watching or thinking about, not what I had for lunch. I follow hundreds of people who use Twitter the same way — a collection of active linkers, journalists, bloggers, New Yorkers, Times staffers and readers. I do not automatically return follows, but if you engage with me and provide interesting content, the odds are I will follow you. If you are relatively new to Twitter, you might be interested in this post, “Basic Twitter Links for Journalists.” If you are interested in seeing how I experience Twitter, my list “Linkers” is the distilled version. I let the varied and eclectic group of linkers and retweeters there curate the Web for me.
About The Times on Twitter
If you have a question about The Times, I will try to answer it, but you may be better off putting the question to the paper’s social media editor, Jennifer Preston, or its public relations team, @NYTimesComm. You can find more Times staffers on Twitter by looking at the staff list at @nytimes on Twitter.
Other Places I Share Links
Only some of the links I share on Twitter come from The Times. If you want to see more of my NYT recommendations, follow me on Timespeople. If you want to see other non-NYT links that I am reading, see my Google Reader profile. I bookmark articles that are specifically about the future of journalism and media on my Delicious page.
If we are acquaintances or friends, find me on Facebook. Sorry, I don’t accept friend requests from people I don’t know.
For one-stop stalking, you can follow all of my tweets, links, bookmarks, updates and more at Friendfeed, but I don’t hang out there much. For more contact information, see the left margin of this blog.
How Do You Use Twitter?
Send me an email, or leave a comment here on the blog. I read them all.
Also, if you like how I use Twitter, please consider making a recommendation at Mr. Tweet.
For more of my thoughts on Twitter, blogging and social media, see these other posts. (I don’t blog much these days. If I do, it is usually about coffee.)
Or, you can just head back to Twitter. You’re probably missing something…
Tags: Blogs, City Room, Delicious, Digg, Facebook, Friendfeed, Google Reader, iPhone Apps, NYT, podcasts, Twitter
June 20, 2009 at 11:37 am
[...] Posts Third-Party iPhone Apps Update 3Third-Party iPhone Apps I Actually UseWelcome, Twitter Users2 Shots and a Cup of Indian MysoreAnother Fine Coffee From Finca SantuarioThird-Party iPhone Apps [...]
June 21, 2009 at 2:05 pm
[...] To Twitter Users [...]
June 22, 2009 at 11:37 am
[...] To Twitter Users [...]
July 15, 2009 at 7:44 am
good morning! my name is ursula i am also journalist. livi in brazil.I would like to maintain contact with you by email or Twitter to lay idéias.good morning, and thank you.
March 7, 2010 at 1:09 am
Hello, Patrick!
Since I had the pleasure of spending a bit of time here browsing around, it seemed only polite to say hello.
And I am now following your Twitter list. I LOVE Twitter — I’m not on it constantly, like some, but I use it in a similar fashion to you — I curate the best stuff for other people, and I have other people curate the best stuff for me. And then, at some point, the people who share my values, who find the same stuff that I do interesting and important — well, we inevitably collide. It’s always awesome when that happens.
I’m also always fascinated by anything NYTimes-y. There’s just so much equity in that brand name. When I was a kid, my mom would read me stories from the Times the way other moms read their kids children’s books. And this place where publishing is going now — it’s just amazing. I understand the pitfalls, but I can’t help but be entranced by warp speed at which it’s all changing.
At any rate, so glad I met you over a RT.
Appropriately enough, it was “if you want to go fast, go alone. if you want to go far, go with others.”
I’m in it for far.
Cheers, Lisa