Twitter Debut for The Pope!

Within a few hours of Benedict XVI joining Twitter, he has already received 755,153 followers!

Since midday today, he has written three tweet posts, in eight languages on the pope’s eight Twitter accounts. Benedict made his Twitter debut at the Vatican during his weekly audience. He was surrounded by a group of young people who ensured he did not make any mistakes.

“Pontiff joins Twitterverse but Vatican says Benedict XVI is ‘not the kind of person who will be checking his tweets at lunch'” (The Guardian, 2012)

Here are some news stories on the announcement:

The Guardian

NY Times

BBC

 

Andy Carvin on Twitter During the Tunisian and Egyptian Revolution

During the Tunisian and Egyptian revolution, social media played a big part in distributing information from the ground of those particular riots and demonstrations, so the public and journalists (away from the scenes) could know everything that was going on. It worked particularly well and showed how powerful social media tools are today. 

Alfred Hermida and Twitter

I was lucky enough to interview Alfred Hermida last week for my Special Study Research Project. As recently discussed on one of my last posts, I am basing my project on Twitter.

From TV to Twitter: How Ambient News Became Ambient Journalism. Alfred Hermida.

In a relatively recent paper written by Alfred Hermida, he discussed how many things have changed in journalism and with the distribution of information. As mentioned in a few of my previous blog posts, there have been many cases when Twitter showed pure power and relevance. 

“Twitter has emerged as a key medium for news and information about major events.” (Hermida, 2010)

The Top 5 Corporate Twitter Disasters

I just received an interesting email from LinkedIn, letting me know about a recent feature that Ryan Holmes, CEO of Hootsuite, wrote about Twitter. I thought it was really interesting because so many people use social media to its full potential and this has increased over the past few years, however Twitter showed how so many people could get it wrong.

The article follows:

Even the FBI use Twitter!

Reuters published an interesting news story today at 12.07pm, talking about the fact that social media can be used as a potenetial breeding ground for securities fraud. Certain FBI agents use Twitter and Facebook for tips and use them for certain investigations, one in particular is the insider trading in the $2 trillion hedge fund industry. 

Social Media: gift or trap?

I have previously mentioned that Twitter can be a dangerous tool of social media and recent events have shown that. I was lucky to have a lecture today that spoke deeply into whether social media is a gift or trap. I am very torn between the two views and even after the lecture I still felt torn. I am hoping that through some recapping on this blog post I will come to some conclusion.

My Online Revolution Project: Twitter

Over the past few weeks of evaluating readings, publications and blogs, I have finally come to a conclusion on what I want to base my 6000 word research project on. In my Online Revolution seminar session I was required to do a presentation on my overall proposal, so I thought I would share this with you and see what you think. 

Twitter Can Be Dangerous

Newsnight image: BBC News Website

In recent events it is evident that Twitter can be a very dangerous tool. The most recent Twitter story is about the Tory chairman Lord McAlpine and how he has been ambushed with false speculation through the internet, that he was the paedophile mentioned in the allegations on the BBC’s Newsnight. Within the past two weeks alone, Twitter has made an impact on many events such as the resignation of the Bureau for Investigative Journalism, Ian Overton, followed then by George Entwhistle, director general of the BBC.

What’s the use in Twitter?

“Twitter is one of a range of new social media technologies that allow for the online and instant dissemination of short fragments of data from a variety of official and unofficial sources.” (Hermida, 2010).