Spalpeen

Jon Bernstein, Multimedia Editor at Channel 4 News, sent this email which I put together out to the Channel 4 News office, after the Twitpic story of Flight 1050 came up in the 9.30AM morning meeting. I’m reposting it here:

Twitter is a wire service for individuals. It allows individuals to share details of their life. Most people use it to let friends know what they are doing, what they are thinking, and what they are seeing.

Some things that were reported first on twitter include:

One of the first good pictures from the Flight 1050 crash
http://twitter.com/jkrums/status/1121915133
http://twitpic.com/135xa

Many direct reports from people caught up in the Mumbai attacks
http://twitter.com/dupreee/status/1025231955
http://twitter.com/kari_shma/status/1024862554
http://twitter.com/gsik/status/1024862642

An American student in Egypt twittered his arrest for photographing a protest, alerting friends and family, who got him a lawyer
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/16/twitter-saves-man-from-egyptian-justice/
http://twitter.com/jamesbuck/statuses/786571964

A person caught in a Denver plane crash
http://twitter.com/2drinksbehind/status/1069832870
http://twitpic.com/ut2c

This video is very useful for describing what twitter is:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ddO9idmax0o

This twitter account is very useful for catching news reported first on twitter:
http://twitter.com/BreakingNewsOn

What Channel 4 News viewers think twitter is:
“the headlines of your life”
“your day/thought/political opinion is 140 characters or less”
“an ongoing global pub conversation”
“Show off. Moan. Follow. Reply. Be useful. Be funny. Be addicted.”

Who twitters?

Many viewers of Channel 4 News
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=channel4news

A handful of MPs
http://tweetminster.co.uk/mps/tweeters

Celebrities twitter (or have their staff do it for them)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/jan/11/twitter-celebs
http://twitter.com/DowningStreet
http://twitter.com/KarlRove
http://twitter.com/andy_murray
http://twitter.com/wossy (Jonathan Ross)

Further reading
http://www.journalism.co.uk/7/articles/531439.php
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/3530640/Mumbai-attacks-Twitter-and-Flickr-used-to-break-news-Bombay-India.html

Only minutes after it happened:

http://twitter.com/pixeldiva/statuses/42816862

http://twitter.com/iKim1213/statuses/42809772

http://twitter.com/unefille/statuses/42831392

http://twitter.com/loudmouthman/statuses/42832672

http://twitter.com/richardbyrom/statuses/42845082

http://twitter.com/steveclifforduk/statuses/42845032

http://twitter.com/nocky100/statuses/42859152

http://twitter.com/dml/statuses/42849192

http://twittermap.com/search

The BBC was very late getting the twitter out, but their TV/web reporting pretty much kept up with my twitters. :-P

http://twitter.com/bbcvideo/statuses/42875822

http://twitter.com/Coneee

Police say a 13-year old male has fallen prey to Twitter, the addictive, web based social networking website that allows users to inform members about their current activity using free text messages.

Currently no dodgy middle aged man has been arrested on suspicion of being a sexual predator, although it is widely suspected that the currently unnamed suspect would use the service in order to satisfy their perversions: investigators are currently not searching computers of the dodgy middle aged man in order to find evidence that the man did not meet the child using Twitter.

Both the man and the boy were not found at a hotel near SXSW.

Thought I’d do Fox and co’s work for them, y’know, just in case they have to make a scaremongering article about twitter. Seriously though, I think twitter is probably the social network with the most potential to be exploited - the service encourages people to tell other people where they are and what they’re doing at that precise moment.