I’m currently on the Amtrak regional about to pull into New York Penn Station. I’ll be here through Tuesday for the Personal Democracy Forum where I’m speaking on a panel. This is my first trip to NYC and I must admit it looks pretty impressive. My apologies for the utter lack of posting, I’ll try to be more frequent.
News of a possible explosion rippled through the popular online service Twitter on Tuesday, in a preview of what’s to come in the realm of breaking news and citizen journalism. Twitter is a so-called microblogging site that allows users to send and receive short messages.
At about 1:37 pm, software developer Dave Winer asked the Twitterverse: “Explosion in Falls Church, VA?” (Perhaps not coincidentally, Winer is a well-known blogger and podcasting evangelist). A flurry of posts, or “tweets,” followed, as users reported rumbles as far away as Alexandria
…The “Falls Church Incident” was earthshaking only in the most literal sense, but it is an interesting proof of concept that news can be broken on Twitter. Reuters is looking at ways to use Twitter in the newsroom, although our feed is currently under renovation
I signed myself up for a Twitter account for a similar reason. On the day of the Pope’s visit, I wanted to catch a glimpse of the popemobile during lunch. I wasn’t sure if I’d missed him or not. At about 11:55 I typed “pope” at tweetscan. I found a tweet from someone that said they were standing at 20th and Pennsylvania, waiting for the Pope to drive by. I knew I hadn’t missed him and rushed over in time to catch the Pontiff drive by with his entourage. I think twitter will reduce the news cycle even further, as on the ground citizen journalists, armed only with text messaging, will be able to broadcast “as it happens” updates of news as a primary source. Cool stuff indeed.
What could this mean for politics? Patrick Ruffini has talked about using twitter for election coverage extensively. It could also be used by supporters to relay what is going on at a campaign event while it’s happening. Embeded reporters to break news from an event or while traveling on a campaign bus. Lastly, rival campaign trackers could broadcast negative information about a candidate live as it happened.
I was an early skeptic of the usefulness of Twitter; but I’ll admit I’m starting to find more and more uses for it every day.
Steve Rubel, who writes the excellent blog Micropersuasions, has some interesting thoughts about dealing with the deluge of information that we’re increasingly faced with while still being informed.
One of the most important skills executives need today is the know-how to manage and harness their personal information flow.
The Attention Crash is a crisis in global business that is getting worse every day. By 2009, the Radicati Group predicts that we’ll spend 41% of our time managing email. Now add to that the IMs, documents, Facebook pokes, RSS feeds, Twitter tweets and text messages coming at us and we’re officially way oversubscribed.
Unfortunately, the problem will not abate. Human attention is finite. It doesn’t scale. Worse, the pace of change today is so rapid there’s a huge need to stay digitally savvy.
I’ve found myself faced with this problem recently. I’ve started trying to squeeze in reading useful books on the metro during my commute or listening to podcasts while at the gym. I make short necessary phone calls walking to and from the metro (can provide an easy excuse to get off the phone too.) Clearing out my inbox each day and making good use of outlook folders helps me a lot. Check out Steve’s suggestions here.
This is a very cool animation that talks about some of the changes occurring because of the internet. This includes democratization of ideas, work, and play. It also makes the case that this sharing of information and this mass collaboration will lead to more freedom, more widespread knowledge, and more participation in democracy.
Bloomberg: Sen. Barack Obama’s supporters “are giving him more than just record amounts of cash. They also are providing personal information that may make his donor list the most powerful tool in U.S. politics,”
Even as blogs, social networks, and other web 2.0 tools get all the attention and hype, the email and donor lists are still the most valuable asset to the campaign. This is not to say the other tools aren’t important and hold promise; but “The List,” if used correctly, is still king among online tools.
