The power of Twitter
19th January 2009
The Airbus that collided with a flock of birds last week in New York, and ended up (by the amazing precision of the Captain and his co-pilot) safely landing in the Hudson River, is what everyone is talking about. Very rarely do planes, which have to land prematurely due to failed engine(s), have a happy ending in which everyone (155 people) survives with little more than bumps, bruises and shock.
Picture of Airbus floating in the Hudson River
Many saw images of the dramatic incident, along with accompanying explanations, across the world before the newsrooms broadcast anything. Janis Krums, a New Yorker, who happened to be on one of the ferries that was despatched to the stricken plane to start to rescue the passengers, took a birds eye photograph of the Airways Airbus on his mobile phone and posted it straight onto his Twitter profile. At the same time, professional news photographers and cameramen were still trying to locate where on the Hudson the actual plane was!
The photograph was viewed millions of times across the world e.g. Australia, Asia and Eastern Europe, all through Twitter, within seconds of it being posted. This just shows how social media is not only a networking tool but also a way of people exchanging new stories such as this one, at an immediate pace.
Even though news organisations have journalists positioned all over the world, to ensure all breaking news stories are covered as soon as possible, they can’t surely compete with people who are already on the scene and able to upload photos and text to their social network profile, while an incident is still occurring, using their handheld digital devices.
Twitter’s user base is growing at a rapid rate, becoming the new preferred social network to Facebook or Bebo. Are its users more likely to find out breaking news from there, rather than seeing it on the latest professional broadcast? It certainly looks like it.
