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Saturday, July 5, 2008

All the news that's fit to tweet.

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  Twitter Gossip rounds up the latest news and opinion about everyone's favorite social media tool. More→

  

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Another earthquake, another Twitter scoop

Once again, Twitter breaks news of an earthquake before the mainstream media. Last week it was the DC area tremor. This time it was the 7.8 magnitude quake that hit western China. According to Venture Beat: “Before it was on CNN, before MSNBC, before the BBC, even before the USGS (the United States Geological Survey, which handles earthquake data) had the information, Twitter was on it. … While the mainstream media scrambled to put up their ‘breaking news’ headlines, on Twitter we had pictures, maps, videos all being sent in real-time.” Read the story.

Twittering during campus lockdown

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the University of Richmond went on lockdown yesterday “following reports of a gunman on the campus. As the audience sat in a dark, locked room awaiting their fates, hoping and praying that tragedy wouldn’t befall another Virginia university, they began communicating and comforting each other via Twitter.”

Said Prof. Jim Groom (@jimgroom): “For those thinking about a means to manage a crisis, I would put Twitter, or an application like it at the top of the list. It proved invaluable today for all sorts of reasons, and it made all the other means of connecting with others and collecting information dreadfully inadequate.” Read the story.

Twitter breaks news of DC-area earthquake

Reports of yesterday’s small-scale earthquake near Washington, DC, first appeared on Twitter, Reuters reports. “At about 1:37 pm, software developer Dave Winer asked the Twitterverse: ‘Explosion in Falls Church, VA?’ … A flurry of posts, or ‘tweets,’ followed, as users reported rumbles as far away as Alexandria.” Local media reported the rumbling as possible blasting at nearby Ft. Belvoir 60 minutes after Winer’s initial Tweet, and confirmed it as a 1.8 magnitude earthquake 30 minutes after that. Read the story.

Bonus: John Borthwick captured the conversation in a screenshot of Summize.

Twitter beats gov at emergency response

A new research study by University of Colorado computer science professor Leysia Palen and others suggests that Twitter and other social media tools are more effective than government systems at warning and informing the public about emergencies. “During the California fires, web users on sites including instant messaging forum Twitter kept friends and neighbours informed of their condition, minute by minute. … However, the authorities struggled to display the sufficient up-to-date information.” Read the story.

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