Comments on: Twitter: The first draft of history?

By: mathewi

mathewi — Wed, 14 May 2008 02:59:03 +0000

Thanks, Jessica. I'd be interested in seeing your dissertation when
you're done.

By: Jessica Barlow

Jessica Barlow — Tue, 13 May 2008 23:40:00 +0000

I am writing a dissertation on the effects of citizen journalism and how online technologies (myspace, facebook, blogger, wordpress and twitter) are affecting the production of online news.

In response to the issues about myspace not being monitored I recently watched the UK earthquake unfold infront of my eyes.

On experiencing the earthquake I logged onto google and frantically searched to what was going on, nothing was returned from reuters, bbc or sky news.

Then bulletins popped up from my myspace friends, with location, epicentre, effects etc etc, with comment following on for about half an hour, until reuters and the mainstream press had broken the news.

I have later learnt that this was first broken on twitter and not myspace, soes anyone have the link to the twitter that broke the news of the UK earthquake?

Great blog Mathew.

By: Eric Rice

Eric Rice — Tue, 13 May 2008 23:17:05 +0000

I'm digging, but there are challenges... What percentage of 'reporting' is
done in Chinese vs. English; what percentage is done on myspace.com vs.
myspace.cn--- is the whole story based the English-speaking side of the
population?

But seriously, why am I even bothering? It's too late for it to matter and
our chamber of echoes is blinded to the digging. Let it run its course so we
can move onto the next thing.

By: mathewi

mathewi — Tue, 13 May 2008 23:05:03 +0000

Eric, if you can find me any evidence of something similar happening
through MySpace, I'd be happy to write about it.

By: Eric Rice

Eric Rice — Tue, 13 May 2008 23:00:02 +0000

It would be too stinky if this happened on myspace, because of the social caste of tech. It probably DID happen on myspace, but who is watching? Aren't the tech blogospheres *better* than it? /smirk