Since when did Twitter become a news source?

[Earth_First]

I just noticed someone reporting information drawn off Twitter.

:shrug:

Has this been addressed?

[Warpy]

1. It's a rumor source

but people at the scene of various world events do post one line descriptions of what's going on.

Just take it all with a pound of salt.

[Deja Q]

4. Pound/dollar ratio is 1.46/1 right now...

At least salt is still cheap... :D

[leftstreet]

2. Since people started posting news items on it?

:shrug:

[EFerrari]

3. If it was that flu thread, a link was provided to cbs:

http://cbs13.com/local/local.swine.flu.2.995008.html

[tekisui]

5. I have followed twitter through some recent 'unfolding' events.

Many times, people reporting on the ground what they have witnessed or heard are slightly ahead of the wire services. Sometimes they are proven wrong.

So far, I have seen twitter 'reports' right more than wrong. Same as first report news services.

[Earth_First]

7. Thanks

I could see that...

[targetpractice]

6. It's not a source... It's a platform...

Many sources of news content are using Twitter to publish realtime updates.

Veratect (veratect.com) is publishing realtime swine flu updates using the Twitter platform... http://www.twitter.com/veratect

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

9. It's a tin can and a string, imo.

And get off my lawn!

[janx]

11. Oh fer crying in a bucket!

:rofl:

[aquart]

14. Yeah. Luddites are people, too.

[Robb]

10. I've been following that one

Interestingly, seems to be 90% accurate over time. Or so.

Got the antivirus stockpile release story about two hours ahead of the rest of the world. Well-placed sources, I guess. But grains of salt quite necessary.

[aquart]

15. Always.

[NightWatcher]

8. they reported a weird story yesterday (veratect)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5533005

[MiniMe]

12. Like everything else, it depends on the source

[targetpractice]

13. About Veratect...

Interesting and innovative approach...

At Veratect, we operate two operations centers based in the United States (one in the Washington, DC area and one in Seattle, WA) that provide animal and human infectious disease event detection and tracking globally. Both operations centers are organizationally modeled after our National Weather Service using a distinct methodology inspired by the natural disaster and meteorology communities. Our analysts handle information in the native vernacular language and have been thoroughly trained in their discipline, which include cultural-specific interpretation of the information. We are currently partnered with 14 organizations that provide us with direct ground observations in 238 countries. We are a multi-source, near-real time event detection and tracking organization with years of experience in this discipline.

[walkaway]

16. Since all of the news papers died

No more investigative journalism. Just random thoughts for news.

[madrchsod]

17. 2009`s teletype machine?

[customerserviceguy]

18. It'll be fun to see what happens with these social networking sites

when they start charging for the large amount of bandwith that they use. It's going to have to happen eventually, and we've seen that ads just don't cut the mustard for paying for "free" stuff on the Internet.

CB radio used to be pretty hot during the 1970's, that died off, too.

[rucky]

19. The flu thing is the first and last time. n/t

[CraftyGal]

20. Up here in Canada, Global TV News, both local and National, uses Twitter and Facebook

to do real time news releases. It was even part of a news story on Friday. All the anchors have to be on twitter and Facebook and they do respond. It was kinda weird seeing the laptop on the news desk though. I think it is great!

Crafty

[Stinky The Clown]

21. If you ain't twittering you ain't shit

I've been told (more or less) that by one of the more vocal DU pot stirrers.

Something about Twitter ain't right. It strikes me as a sort of Politico - from nowhere to indispensable in 63.5 seconds.

Stinky don't Twitter

[Vidar]

22. All the Faux News talking heads have been flogging it up.