Download - Digital Tsunami: Breaking News at Breakneck Speeds

SXSW Panel, March 17th, 2009

@alexdcalexdc.org

StartPR.com

Digital Tsunami: Breaking News at Breakneck Speeds

Alex de Carvalho

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

http://twitter.com/alexdc


http://alexdc.org

http://alexdc.org

http://startpr.com

http://startpr.com

“People need information as much as water, food, medicine or shelter. Information can save lives, livelihoods and resources. Information bestows power.”

- Markku NiskalaSecretary General of the International Federation of Red Cross


The challenge:

Tracking

Organizing

The random stuff


http://mobileactive.org/mobile-voice-use-mobile-phones-citizen-media

Every Cell Phone Is A Media Outlet




Mexico EarthquakeApril 12th, 2007andresb my whole apartment creaked and bent a little half a minute ago from twitterrificandresb The strongest tremor I’ve felt since I’m hereBioXD Acaba de temblar :S….estuvo muy fuerteandresb woooooow, earthquake in Mexico CityCyberMJ75 Damn! Just experienced an earthquake. That sucker lasted some minutes.paranoideo Very strong earthquake in Mexico City, paranoideo.com is reporting live (:P)earcos Very strong earthquake in Mexico City, VivirMexico.com is reporting live (in spanish, sorry)Satrina Earthquake in Mexico City, was long and a little bit strongdotmotion That was a hell of an earthquake.. and I’m on a 7th floor… I still feel sickrogeriogal Earthquake in Cuernavaca, just passed. I’m still dizzy.trisignia wow, earthquake in Mexico City…my first everhelmi Mexico earthquake now on german news tvrobblatt Earthquake still not on cnn.com (at approx. 11:10 p.m. Pacific)

Robert Scoble http://scobleizer.com/2007/04/12/mexico-city-earthquake-reported-on-twitter-first/Wednesday, March 18, 2009

How did I find out about the Mexico City Earthquake? On Twitter. As soon as people started reporting it on Twitter, I looked at the USGS maps. The Twitterers beat the USGS by several minutes.

-Robert Scoble


“I reported the major quake to my followers on Twitter before the USGS Website had a report up and about an hour before CNN or major press started talking about it.

How did I do that? Well, I was watching Twitter on Google Talk. Several people in China reported to me they felt the quake WHILE IT WAS GOING ON!!!”

-Robert Scoble

http://scobleizer.com/2008/05/12/quake-in-china/

China EarthquakeMay 12th, 2008




Curtis Williams http://twitter.com/lenier/statuses/376713132


Photo by juliebee http://www.flickr.com/photos/69148125@N00/326386880/

Most mainstream media are just broadcasting ...


http://www.flickr.com/photos/69148125@N00/326386880/


✤ Photo by Paulo Alegria http://www.flickr.com/photos/49457106@N00/280789933/

... rather than listening and tracking reports from the ground (from users of twitter, flickr, etc.)




http://startpr.com

We need new ways to identify news as it breaks


http://startpr.com

http://startpr.com

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&ll=18.922445,72.832242&spn=0.007054,0.007864&z=17&msid=105055855763538009401.00045c9d8b16af3ad1008

Mumbai Attacks




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/26_November_2008_Mumbai_attacks




http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=Mumbai+attacks&aq=f




http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=mumbai%20attacks&w=all




http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=california%20wildfire&w=7550402%40N02

California Fires




http://twitter.com/jamesbuck/statuses/786571964




http://twitter.com/jamesbuck/status/853029967




Erroneous Amber Alert Spread Via TwitterFebruary 17, 2009

“AMBER ALERT A 7 yr old girl was taken by a man driving a newer silver truck. The license plate reads 72b381 please please pass on.”

Utah authorities claimed the reports to be a false instance of an Amber Alert and issued a statement.

However, Twitter users continued to report the missing girl, going so far as to tie up the lines of police stations across the country with tips on the supposed abductor...

http://instantamber.com/news/breaking-news-erroneous-amber-alert-spread-via-twitter/

However ...




“Twitter messages were providing incredible focus on the important subtopics that had yet to become popular in the traditional media… what I found most interesting… was that news articles did exist on these topics, but just weren't valued highly enough yet r not focusing on the right stories (as the majority of tweets were).”

-Vik Singh

Architect, Yahoo! BOSS diy search engine

An attempt to provide context


http://tweetnews.appspot.com/fresh?q=earthquake

(1) Real-time search + freshness

(2) Stitching social commentary to authoritative sources of information

-Vik Singh




Building a news organization from scratch on Twitter:


The challenge:

Tracking

Organizing

The random stuff


Social media allows not only for the reporting of hyper-local breaking news, but also for distributing helpful information after the fact and particularly for organizing collective action to help deal with crises.


Instedd

"It's a familiar scene. Following the onset of a major disease outbreak or natural disaster, government agencies, non-governmental organizations and the local community must join forces and act quickly to alleviate suffering. You, your colleagues and groups that don't normally work together now need to communicate, assemble teams, share information, make plans and coordinate a response.”

http://instedd.org/


http://instedd.org

http://instedd.org

http://instedd.org/


http://instedd.org

http://instedd.org

http://gustav08.ning.com/Wednesday, March 18, 2009

http://gustav08.ning.com

http://gustav08.ning.com

http://www.hurricanewiki.org/wiki/Main_Page




The challenge:

Tracking

Organizing

The random stuff


✤ We can do a lot to prepare in advance, by learning to better identify breaking news (and providing tools and training to people) and by planning effective methods for crisis response using social media.

✤ We can also work to minimize the impacts of the most random types of breaking crises and their consequences.


“Oh, during the quake we didn’t lose power, didn’t lose cell phones, and didn’t lose access to Twitter.

During a really big quake there will be lots of infrastructure down, but SOMEONE will be able to get messages out and that’ll really be interesting to watch how information gets shared if, say, all of San Francisco isn’t able to communicate with the Internet.”

-Robert Scoble


SXSW Panel, March 17th, 2009

@alexdcalexdc.org

StartPR.com

Digital Tsunami: Breaking News at Breakneck Speeds

Alex de Carvalho




http://alexdc.org

http://alexdc.org

http://startpr.com

http://startpr.com

Download - Digital Tsunami: Breaking News at Breakneck Speeds

Top Related