This website has received an advance copy of next weekend’s column, penned by the Star Tribune’s editor-in-chief, on topics of interest regarding the newspaper’s operations. Here’s the text:

A New Box For a Changing World

Bringing the Twitter into your home. 

By Nancy Barnes, Star Tribune editor 

As many of you have explained to us, technology is changing the news business, rapidly in some cases. The proliferation of car phones and photostatic copiers is the tip of the iceberg. New devices are emerging every day and you’re telling us that they have meaningful roles in your home and work life and you expect the Star Tribune to understand these devices and modes and keep you informed about how they are changing the suburbs you live in and what’s coming next.

The result has been a series of “tech exchange” meetings where our best reporters and editors examined these devices, had them explained to us by several interns, and though we are awaiting batteries and chargers before distributing them (Lileks excepted), we have made coverage of them a priority.

The most important of these devices is the Twitter, which allows simultaneous information sharing among groups of people all over town or even in adjacent counties. We have made a commitment to offer at least one Twitter-based story each day, and you are noticing these changes. You’re welcome.

We will offer numerous areas of Twitter-related coverage:

• News briefs that explain that notable people are using Twitter around the world, particularly ex-Minnesotans, who are more relevant than other people.

• Feature coverage examining how minority and marginalized groups, such as women and gay men, are being excluded from or insisting on access to Twitter, and then mastering it just as a white, heterosexual man might.

• Deeply sourced and reported coverage of Twitter’s use in local businesses and the non-profit/public sector arenas. We will attempt, where resources allow, to explain why this is meaningful or relevant.

• Thoughtful trend coverage incorporating our arts and culture staff, who visit New York City frequently and encounter cutting edge ex-Minnesotans defining how Twitter will be used in the future.

• News of how Twitter is changing life in suburban communities and townships where life is simpler and the impact of technology farther-reaching.

Contingent on acquisition of resources, it is our goal to begin a similar process with the Facebook, which is not actually a book, but a new service available through the televisions many of us have on our desks. You can expect the same standard of deeply reported, broadly sourced, inequity aware, township-centric coverage when we have the cash. 

In the meantime, tell me how you are using the Facebook and what impact it is or isn’t having on your face or the faces of those close to you. Write one of my staff at electonicmailA@startribune.com and please include your postal address so we may solicit your feedback on other ways to improve how this newspaper serves you. And if you are reading this column online, please press the button and make it "Delicious."