They're saying Twitter has just had its CNN moment.
CNN became mainstream with its live coverage of the Gulf War in 1990. And it was a Tweet that broke the news of the killing of Osama Bin Laden - sparking celebrations on US streets a full hour before President Obama addressed the nation.
The Tweet was from Keith Urbahn. It could have gone un-noticed except for the fact that Urbahn is the former Chief of Staff for ex-Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
And it turned out that - unknowingly - an eye witness had tweeted about the US raid:
It took the conventional media a further 20 minutes to run the story. By this time, Twitter had move on to dissecting the news and even spreading jokes about it, with dozens of accounts like @Osamainhell and @Osamaghost being set up.
Twitter broke, reacted, made jokes about, and got bored with the news almost before the conventional media got round to reporting it.
You can follow IJSMblog on Twitter and Facebook
CNN became mainstream with its live coverage of the Gulf War in 1990. And it was a Tweet that broke the news of the killing of Osama Bin Laden - sparking celebrations on US streets a full hour before President Obama addressed the nation.
The Tweet was from Keith Urbahn. It could have gone un-noticed except for the fact that Urbahn is the former Chief of Staff for ex-Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
And it turned out that - unknowingly - an eye witness had tweeted about the US raid:
It took the conventional media a further 20 minutes to run the story. By this time, Twitter had move on to dissecting the news and even spreading jokes about it, with dozens of accounts like @Osamainhell and @Osamaghost being set up.
Twitter broke, reacted, made jokes about, and got bored with the news almost before the conventional media got round to reporting it.
You can follow IJSMblog on Twitter and Facebook
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