News Industry on Twitter: Full of Crazies, Not Reliable – O'Reilly Broadcast April 29, 2009
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , trackbackIf you want an example of the success of Twitter as a mechanism for distributing authoritative information about the Swine Flu, look at the rapid growth in the subscriber numbers for the @CDCemergency account. The @CDCemergency twitter account users have been able to get notifications about conference calls and direct communications from the federal agency tasked with monitoring and reacting to the crisis. The fact that the followers for @CDCemergency went form ~2,600 on Wednesday to ~28,000 should tell you that people are making a rational decision to pay attention to trusted sources.
Contrary to Morozov and Slattery, I believe that Twitter is one of the most essential weapons that government has to get timely information to the general population in this crisis. As with all human discourse be it written, spoken, or "texted", the medium has its imperfections.
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