Fucking Twitter. I don't have the same loathing for Twitter that I reserve for FaceBook but I still view Twitter has some form of apocalyptic harbinger. At least 99.8% of the traffic on Twitter is meaningless drivel composed with little care and even less thought. That is why this article, from the Christian Science Monitor of all places, grabbed my attention.
Even I will admit that my hatred of Twitter had blinded me to the raw potential of the service. Up until very recently Twitter's only real use (IMHO) was to try to define your meager existence, a shot in the dark that someone out there would actually care about your poorly composed 140 character ramblings. But recent events have given incredible legitimacy to Twitter as a means of gathering and disseminating information. Now you have the "major" media citing Tweets as sources of information about topics varying from civil unrest in Iran to celebrity deaths. No matter if the news anchor states that the information is unconfirmed, they are legitimizing Twitter as a source just by merely recognizing it...that's just wild. Of course the people that should really fear Twitter are Public Relations firms. Why pay some agency thousands of dollars to get your message out when Twitter is just as effective if not more so? But then that leads to absolute comedy gold like Sarah Palin's I'll sue your ass off Twitters of late...some people need a mouth piece to not sound like complete loons.
Twitter is already a way of broadcasting messages beyond the physical or virtual barriers erected by insular and oppressive governments then why would it not be worthy of a Nobel Prize?
No comments:
Post a Comment