[philm]

I like to keep with all that is sexy on the Internet, so I have a Twitter account and access this from time-to-time from my iPhone. I 'follow' a couple of people and I can see that they are about to wash their hair or walk the dog.

I now read that the Hudson air crash is a potential tipping point for the Twitter protocol, but I don't get it. Someone put up a 'tweet' which appeared before the BBC reported the crash, but presumably I would need to be 'following' this person and just happen to check my Twitter updates to notice this on Twitter before the BBC. Given that no-one I know with a Twitter account happened to be on a ferry to pick up the passengers, how was Twitter going to tell me about the crash before the mainstream news. Am I missing something? Does anyone use Twitter for anything meaningful?

[Doofy]

The BBC are just pissed that they'd didn't break the story. Obviously they need more reporters. And to do that, they need more licence fees.

I suspect that this is not just about this idiotic Twitter thing - I suspect it's about how quickly news now travels around the 'net in all formats and thus the traditional media news companies are slowly losing their ability to spread their propaganda break the news first.

[RAILhead]

No.

[jokell82]

Originally Posted by philm 

I like to keep with all that is sexy on the Internet, so I have a Twitter account and access this from time-to-time from my iPhone. I 'follow' a couple of people and I can see that they are about to wash their hair or walk the dog.

I now read that the Hudson air crash is a potential tipping point for the Twitter protocol, but I don't get it. Someone put up a 'tweet' which appeared before the BBC reported the crash, but presumably I would need to be 'following' this person and just happen to check my Twitter updates to notice this on Twitter before the BBC. Given that no-one I know with a Twitter account happened to be on a ferry to pick up the passengers, how was Twitter going to tell me about the crash before the mainstream news. Am I missing something? Does anyone use Twitter for anything meaningful?

This is how you'd see the news before anywhere else:
http://twitter.com/public_timeline

Also, many people receive their twitter updates via SMS, so they'd be notified pretty much immediately if they were following someone that posted about the event.

Edit - Twitter was also the first place to read about the plane that ran off the runway a few weeks back out west. One of the passengers was a twitter user and he posted updates throughout the whole thing (after he was safe, of course).

[starman]

This has been going on for months. This is nothing new.

When the earthquake happened in the Pacific a few months back, it was on Twitter long before it was reported by any news outlet because news outlets have a protocol to follow which takes time. Literally less than 5 seconds after an earthquake hits, someone tweets "massive earthquake here in Japan" and then another person, and another, and another, etc.

Important/funny tweets are "retweeted", meaning they're duplicated with the name of the person who first wrote it. All it takes is someone like Robert Scoble or Gary V to retweet it and BAM! you have thousands of people hearing about it before the news can mention it.

Add iPhone pics to that and you have the very first photo of an event long before a newscrew can get there, and from points of view the news can never, EVER give you.

[E's Lil Theorem]

Originally Posted by philm 

I like to keep with all that is sexy on the Internet, so I have a Twitter account and access this from time-to-time from my iPhone. I 'follow' a couple of people and I can see that they are about to wash their hair or walk the dog.

I now read that the Hudson air crash is a potential tipping point for the Twitter protocol, but I don't get it. Someone put up a 'tweet' which appeared before the BBC reported the crash, but presumably I would need to be 'following' this person and just happen to check my Twitter updates to notice this on Twitter before the BBC. Given that no-one I know with a Twitter account happened to be on a ferry to pick up the passengers, how was Twitter going to tell me about the crash before the mainstream news. Am I missing something? Does anyone use Twitter for anything meaningful?

Twitter has a feature that allows you to get updates that contains words that you choose even if you don't follow that person. I think the feature is called "track words". So, if you you choose to get updates with the word "swimming" in them and the person on the plan twitters, " OMG! We's about to go swimming in the Hudson river!!!", you would have gotten that update.

[0157988944]

I follow no one on the boat, however I had at least 10 tweets in Twitteriffic seconds after the crash from people retweeting.

EDIT: By "boat" I of course meant "plane."

[philm]

Originally Posted by adamfishercox 

I follow no one on the boat, however I had at least 10 tweets in Twitteriffic seconds after the crash from people retweeting.

EDIT: By "boat" I of course meant "plane."

How many people do you follow, if you don't mind me asking? There must be a critical mass of people to make this 'domino effect' work. Also, presumably you needed to have Twitterific open on your iPhone at the time?

[0157988944]

I follow about 150, a fairly low number, and about 175 follow me. I have Twitterrific constantly open on my computer, which is where I am a lot of the time. I hear about most things over Twitter before RSS or certainly TV/Radio.

[turtle777]

My life would not have been changed if I had learned about this hours earlier than I actually did.

So no, I don't need Twitter.

But Railhead already summed it up pretty nicely.

-t