My Twitter contacts were all talking about it within the first few hours, and now I see that main stream media has picked up the story too: Twitter and Blogs were the most frequented information channels during the first few hours of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai last Wednesday. Brian Caulfield and Naazneen Karmali, call this “Citizen journalism” in their recent article in Forbes. Others call this “Twitter’s moment” – people were using rapid tweets to report attacks throughout the city.
There are several visitors from around the world who are updating their Twitter accounts constantly and reporting almost quicker than the the CNN journalists in fron the of Taj. I am following some of them and watching the news at the same time. Astounding how quick information is spreading.
I read one concern in using SMS and Twitter messaging during terrorist attacks: Tweets can unfortunately reveal people’s locations, whether they were using their smartphone at the train station or in one of the cafes. The downside of social media…The attackers’ origin was determined based on their cellphones (at the moment it seems as if most of them are from Pakistan). That the upside, I guess… if there is one at all.
