Twitter: “share and discover what’s happening, right now, anywhere in the world.” Twitter, a free social networking and microblogging site, enables users to send and receive messages of 140 characters (“tweets”) to subscribers (“followers”). It was created in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, himself an avid Twitter-er.
In the last 2 years Twitter has been written about widely in the media – as the New York Times collection of articles on Twitter attests.
While ridicule has been heaped on Twitter users for revealing the most mundane and boring aspects of their everyday lives, Twitter’s use in politics has been widely commented on – from Obama’s use to how it was used to distribute updates about the June Iranian election (‘the Twitter Revolution’) counter to the news blackouts there – and in particular, its use as a vital form of citizens’ journalism. Below, a few recent articles about Twitter. From Pear Analytics: a study on how people Tweet.
From Brian Solis’s blog: A Pictorial History of Twitter (June 23, 2009).
Noam Cohen, Twitter on the Barricades-Six Lessons Learned. New York Times, June 20, 2009.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/21/weekinreview/21cohenweb.html?_r=2&ref=global-home
Brad Stone and Noam Cohen. Social Networks Spread Defiance Online. New York Times, June 15, 2009.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/16/world/middleeast/16media.html?ref=weekinreview
A word cloud from 84,000 tweets containing the term #iranelection.
http://neoformix.com/2009/IranElectionShapedWordCloud.html
Jeff Tietz – True Stories – June 18, 2009 – Iranian Elections and Aftermath – The Best of Twitter
http://trueslant.com/jefftietz/2009/06/18/iranian-elections-and-aftermath-twitters-best-coverage/
Timothy Garton Ash. Twitter counts more than armouries in this new politics of people power. The Guardian, June 17, 2009.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/17/iran-election-protests-twitter-studentsentisfree/2009/jun/17/iran-election-protests-twitter-students
John Cole cartoon from LA Times:
http://community.thetimes-tribune.com/blogs/johncole/archive/2009/06/18/watch-the-birdy.aspx
Images from Iran-NY Times The Lede
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/06/19/world/middleeast/1194841070305/the-lede-images-from-iran.html
