NYC Media Establishment Takes on Twitter

Check out the contentious back-and-forth about the value of Twitter between two of the nation's most prominent media elites. The opening volley was fired by George Packer in his "Stop the World" column in the January 29 edition of The New Yorker. "Every time I hear about Twitter I want to yell Stop," Packer wrote. "The notion of sending and getting brief updates to and from dozens or thousands of people every few minutes is an image from information hell."

Responding to this throw-down, Nick Bilton of The New York Times launched a counter-attack on February 3: "Unfortunately, Mr. Packer’s misgivings seem to be based entirely on what he has heard about the service -- he’s so afraid of it that he won’t even try it. (I wonder how Mr. Packer would feel if, say, a restaurant critic panned a restaurant based solely on hearsay about the establishment.)"

Decide for yourself on the value of Twitter now -- and where this service is going in the future -- by attending the Ev Williams Keynote Interview on Monday, March 15, at SXSW Interactive 2010.