What can Twitter teach?

Posted by Louise

June 26, 2009

The first thing I did this morning was turn on the radio just in time to catch the news. (Sadly) the second thing was to search ‘Michael Jackson’ on Twitter. Even half asleep I had known that the news would be making Twitter tidal waves. And something that shocked me - I was more willing to trust Twitter, than I was our national broadcaster.

A minute after the first search results appeared, my browser informed me that a further 4500+ Tweets had been published featuring the words ‘Michael Jackson’. Thats about 75 Tweets per second farewelling the King of Pop.

News of Farrah Fawcett’s death also broke some time this morning, with the news about the Charlie’s Angels star also impacting on the Tweet Stream. At the moment of writing the trending topics on Twitter are a mix of Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Rest in Peace and, an event in may become Twitter’s defining moment (although not to downplay the gravity of the situation in any way), Iran’s Elections .

Meanwhile, while everyone was online expressing shock, showing the unity a good online network can inspire, there were some out there hoaxing us all with fake messages that celebrities Jeff Goldblum and Harrison Ford has also died.

The events of this morning may still be unfolding, but what we’ve learnt from Twitter so far is that it doesn’t take much for 140 characters to go viral, and fast. While sometimes this communication can spread real news effectively at an unparralled speed, we must also remember this technology can spread fake and more sensationalised news just as fast. Those news outlets who have become too reliant on Twitter Streams for news stories need to remember that their reputations rest on their accuracy, and sometimes it only takes a phonecall to verify the real facts.

Yes we have a world of information at our fingertips, but as my dad would say: ‘engage brain first’, then google.

Signing off,

Louise.

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