Today has been a big news day. The international financial markets went crazy, and the US Federal Reserve cut a key benchmark rate by 0.75% about an hour before US markets were going to open after a long holiday weekend. Last night was a major Democratic party debate, where the candidates started really doing battle with each other. Heath Ledger was found dead in his NYC flat. There were other big stories, but it’s late and these were the big surprises of the day.
What’s odd about all this? I found out about both of the “Breaking” news stories from Twitter.
I know that the tech-saavy people have already experienced this phenomenon, but as I’ve described earlier, I’m much more of a Twitter voyeur than a true Twitter-community participant, so it’s never happened to me. To be on the receiving end of breaking news twice via Twitter on the same day was fascinating.
While there’s really no implication of this in anything, it’s still interesting to note. Perhaps I’ll pay more attention to Twitter in the coming weeks/months.
Jed Christiansen 