Sunday Times emerges from behind paywall for live Twitter interview
'Witter' interview series, normally printed in the magazine, will take place live on the social networking site tomorrow
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The Sunday Times Magazine's printed Witter interview series will emerge from behind the paywall tomorrow with a live Twitter interview.
The regular feature, which claims to be "the world's fastest interview" with a maximum answer from interviewees of 140 characters, will be replicated on Twitter tomorrow afternoon under the hashtag #witterlive.
The interviewee will be @MrsStephenFry, a character which describes 'herself' as Edna Fry, "Stephen's poor, downtrodden wife and mother of his five, six or possibly seven kids". The alias recently published a book entitled Mrs Fry's Diary.
Questions can be posed by Twitter users to @TheSTMagazine using the hashtag \#witterlive and the interview will take place at 1pm.
Speaking to Journalism.co.uk Sunday Times online assistant editor Serena Kutchinsky said it would be a "good thing" for the site.
"The challenge for us was that we had taken the web concept and put it in print, and it was how to put that back into the web to make it real-time and live."
" ... It's breaking new ground very much for the Sunday Times and in general for the industry. It is an innovative way of harnessing social media and engaging with our audience."
A transcript of the interview will be available in the magazine online, with an aim to make the Twitter interview a weekly series.
The Sunday Times this week also announced the launch of its new iPad edition this weekend, featuring all 12 sections from the newspaper, three magazines and an interactive TV guide.
A free app will be available to download from the iTunes store from tomorrow featuring a full sample issue of the Sunday Times iPad edition and the 'storefront' where users can purchase individual editions or access them as part of a digital subscription to thesundaytimes.co.uk.
The iPad edition is complimentary with the online digital subscription of £2 per week or with a seven-day newspaper subscription. Alternatively it can be bought for £1.79 from the App store.
