Niki Cheong

LA Earthquake news: Twitter reigns supreme

Jul 30, 2008 Sounds Like Pop

Media convergence is well and alive.

I just read this story on CNET (well, it was headlined on Yahoo! News) about how a woman Twitter-ed her first earthquake experience, from her gynecologist’s office.

The article quotes Verdell Wilson as saying:

“As soon as I got dressed, I twittered my experience from my cell phone,” Wilson said. “I usually twitter to 80 friends, but I now have 274 messages from people commenting on it.”

Why this is significant is because mobile networks and phone lines usually get jammed up during disasters - whether through heavy traffic, or physical damage to cell lines/power stations. With Twitter, all you really need is wireless access.

This is most significant for people like me - journalist - as we start embracing media convergence. There is a lot of talk about using videos, audios and images but I feel that if something is newsworthy, you don’t need anything fancy to attract a reader. And the convergence, IMHO, is really about getting the news out in the fastest possible time using the most convinient and efficient of tools.

In the case of Twitter, it’s text-based, uses less than 140 characters and is live.

Maybe journalists in China covering the Olympics can use it if they encounter any problems with the authorities and the censorship of the Internet during that time, as announced by the Beijing Games organising committee spokesperson.

And if they ban Twitter online as well, then the good news is, Twitter can be updated via SMS too.

2.04pm Malaysian time (+8 GMT)

Tags: Beijing Olympics, Internet Censorship, Los Angeles Earthquake, Media Convergence, Twitter