Twitter has become increasingly popular as a news source. While microblogging is anything but content rich, it’s true value added is in its ability to be up to date by the minute. While in most cases this is not very important to people, there are situations where by the minute is imperative.
There supposedly was a situation at the Twitter Headquarters in San Francisco where the world earthquake spiked as a keyword. The staff was perplexed, until the earthquake shook their office less than a minute later. The Tweets were faster than the earthquake! Less dramatic examples of this can be found. One is how today many people are following and tweeting about the California State Supreme Court decision regarding Proposition 8. A lot of Californians are anxiously awaiting to hear what the decision will be.
The larger rammifications of this has dual consequences. First of all, people will be less likely to turn to print when knews finds them in real time, rather than seeking it out on their own. The downside is that is drastically changes the business model for traditional print, and even online publications. Furthermore, a societal side effect would be that news would become less analytical, and much more decontextualized. Anger towards this technology may be the only thing that Neil Postman and Rupert Murdoch have in common.
