Monday, June 02, 2008

TheStar.com | Ideas | Tweet, tweet - there's been an earthquake

TheStar.com | Ideas | Tweet, tweet - there's been an earthquake: "Then, last month, Twitter's coming-out party: the magnitude-7.9 earthquake in Chengdu that buried thousands. Twitter users offered the first on-scene accounts. 'Slight ly dizzy after being shaken around by the Chengdu earthquake for several hours now,' tweeted one user, Casperodj.

Suddenly, Twitter's triviality was no longer its most notable feature. 'I saw three people in Chengdou giving reports on the ground long before traditional media could even get close,' said Fons Tuinstra, a media consultant in Shanghai and a fellow at the U.S. media nonprofit organization the Poynter Institute. 'On that first day, it was a very important tool – a great example of how it could work.'"

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