Yet another example of why conventional media is struggling these days: Search twitter when something is happening = learn whats happening. Search Newspaper sites, TV sites, etc = stay in the dark.
Port Authority being evacuated 09/22/09
This morning the Port Authority Terminal on 8th Avenue in NYC was evacuated because of a reported suspicious package. Did you hear about this? You might be watching it now on the 24Hr News outlets (CNN, MSNBC, and the one that shall not be named)You probably will tonight at 5PM, 6PM, 630PM, 10PM, and 11PM on various News programming (ABC, NBC, CBS). You will probably read about it tomorrow in all of the local (and maybe national newspapers).
BUT… you would have heard about it hours ago (!!true!!) if you paid attention to it on Twitter. While this is nothing new it is still yet again worth noting.
You could have learned about Michael Jacksons death on Twitter, you could have learned about an earthquake in California, a severe thunderstorm in New York, people pole dancing in the subways, you name it…
I am not saying that it you open twitter this morning you would have immediately known what was going on at the Port Authority Terminal, BUT the odds are that you live in NY and use twitter, then someone you knew might have tweeted or retweeted that something was going on.
I (and many others) have said this before… twitter is really a SIGNAL vs. NOISE problem, i.e. how to get the the signal you want out of all that noise (and there is a lot of it!!). There are services like Tweetmeme popping up but there has got to be a better way to harness all this power!
Tags: Ideas