The Power of Twitter
Well it should be common knowledge by now that Julia Gillard has taken the top position as Australia’s Prime Minister. If you did not know of this fact until now, then I guess you have been living under a rock since last Thursday evening, or perhaps you just don’t have a Twitter account.
According to this ninemsn story , the news of our new PM wasn’t broken in a tv, radio, online or print bulletin – it was in fact broken by News Ltd’s Samantha Maiden through one simple tweet: “Labor Mp text: it’s Julia no ballot”. This message of less than 140 characters, as well as other messages tweeted by fellow journalists spread like wildfire through Twitter-land.
I was on Twitter on Thursday night and I have to say, there were tweets popping up left, right and centre about the new PM. I’ll be honest; I didn’t watch the debate (was the debate even televised?), but I didn’t have to. Thanks to the “Tweeties” I follow, I was well informed about the goings on of the debate, and the outcome. It’s amazing how a simple social media tool can keep one so well informed during an episode of Law & Order: SVU.
And it’s not just the news of the new PM that I have heard about before a news bulletin! For example, I knew of both the Haiti and Chilean earthquakes hours before news bulletins even surfaced here in Australia. The power of Twitter is very much underestimated.
To those who think Twitter is a pointless social media website, I urge you to think again. While there are certainly tweets along the lines of “I ate a cupcake for breakfast” and “I love Justin Beiber”, there’s also a lot of very informative and up-to-the-minute information on Twitterland that you just can’t get anywhere else right now!
Tweeting always,
…Paul-saurus
