Note To Keith Olbermann on Twitter Report: You Don’t Need To Say ‘At’

Countdown host Keith Olbermann is a recent, welcome addition to the Twitter community, and his “Twitter Report” is a welcome addition to the show. As such, this is not, in any way, meant to dissuade him from doing the segment, but rather to fine-tune it. Mr. Olbermann? When you’re reading people’s Twitter names, you don’t actually have to say “at.” <

Here’s another hint that may come in handy. When speaking a hashtag aloud, you also don’t have to say the word “hashtag.” You just say the hashtagged phrase in a lower, quicker voice like Goldmember, or Kevin Nealon‘s Mr. Subliminal.

Keith is, of course, not alone in the struggle to translate Twitterese into real-life speech. I find lots of my IRL friends peppering their phone conversations with references to “Ed Henry-See-En-En” or “unfollowing” their girlfriends. OK, I made that last one up.< Other than that, the segment is a great way for Olbermann to interact with, and perhaps cross-pollinate, his TV and Twitter audiences. Like Chuck Todd before him, Keith has become an effective ambassador for Twitter, quickly leveraging it to enhance the experience of both sets of followers.

I would encourage him to do more interaction with non-fans on Twitter, and highlight those interactions on the show. The audience that loves to hate him is probably a vast untapped resource, and a great way to glue some more eyeballs to the show. But something tells me that you have your own ideas on how best to proceed.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.