I think what ZDNet is doing works for ZDNet. Attracting fresh readers and building the site’s overall media footprint is important. You know your business model and what works. Tweeting offers value to your readers which is an important part of your philosophy.

That’s not where News Corporation is these days. Rightly or wrongly Rupert Murdoch wants to make the company’s online business more profitable.

He says it’s necessary to finance the teams of reporters etc behind large scale media operations like The Australian. I suspect it also has something to do with wanting to return to the days of 20 percent return on capital that big media enjoyed briefly at the end of the twentieth century.

Either way, the bean counters at News Corporation will see Twittering as a cost centre. And other managers will see it as a risk.

Traffic to the news stories and debate on our site about the issue has increased as a direct consequence of Liam’s live tweeting. It hasn’t been decreasing.

Because of the tweeting, readers (some of whom hadn’t previously been regular ZDNet.com.au readers) have been attracted to the site and now see Liam as having an authority on the trial. We’ve had a number of people comment that they have now subscribed to our site RSS feed as a direct consequence etc.

Secondly, does everything that journalists do directly pay the bills? Of course not. We have coffees with sources, attend events which we sometimes don’t write articles about, give speeches at conferences and so on.

But it all adds up to a bigger picture. Ultimately, Rick’s right. We need to continue to serve our audiences’ information needs, whatever those needs may be. And using Twitter is clearly something our audience wants.

My point is this needs to be viewed in the context of newspapers like The Australian and The National Business Review going back to asking readers to pay for content.

As for me. I’ve been a professional journalist for almost 30 years and I’ll carry on tweeting.