@Twitter ultimate News Source for Thanksgiving #mumbai attack ? [kwiqq]

Posted on | November 27, 2008 | View Comments

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Mumbai attack on 26th November is a testimonial of the use of Twitter as a news source. Thausands of twitter posts tagged started flowing into the twittosphere from the start of the dramatic Mumbai attacks. To make the news relavant to the target audience twitterers added a tag #mumbai. At an average about 6 tweets were sent tagged #mumbai per minute. Some contributing to latest news, others retwittering the news and some just adding to the noise with speculation.

Twitter forced the Indian government to issue a statement asking users to STOP twittering:

<Source BBC> Indian government asks for live Twitter updates from Mumbai to cease immediately. “ALL LIVE UPDATES – PLEASE STOP TWEETING about #Mumbai police and military operations,” a tweet says.

Although this did not stop major media sources recommending Twitter as Mumbai news:

BBC NEWS (link): Emergent007 tweets: The situation will get far more complicated as night falls in Mumbai … Read Emergent007′s tweets.

CNN (Source Video stream. Thanks @OutsideMyBrain): “Twitter one of the best sources of news during a situation like Mumbai“.

Obviously twitter based services were actively spreading vital Mumbai info. My favourite is BreakingNewsOn:

Twitter as news source

Techcrunch earlier reported how they couldn’t understand why Twitter was not a news source in their blog post. In my opinion Twitter is certainly a news source and although there are quiet a few inaccurate tweets flying around. There are others constantly correcting and making suggestions. Also at this point the reputation kicks in and people reporting accurate and confirmed news get more Kudos.

Incidents like Mumbai Attacks are  also the time when maximum following the quitting of Twitter accounts takes place. Anyone shouting and spreading inaccurate news is actively removed. Apart from potentially disrupting the military operation in Mumbai there are some really positive things which came out of Twitter:

1). Users were Retweeting messages asking people to donate blood to a local hospital, traditionally that would take days to arrange:

2). Some users were pointing to official/unofficial sources to get more news about their loved ones involved in the tragedy (the link points to source):

3). Last but not the least the latest news from twitter was flowing at a much faster rate compared to CNN’s Live Video, NDTV Live and BBC’s news live updates.

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