trending topics | TechTimmy

After the first couple of weeks on Twitter, tweeting about very mundane tasks, getting a grip on what the site was really about, I finally fell in love with Twitter, essentially, for one purpose: the flow of information. When news happens, it’s on Twitter long before any editors can approve an article for web publishing, and before the major news outlets (eg. AP, Reuters) even send out notices. I remember specifically a plane had crashed, and news of it spread on Twitter. Michael van Poppel of BNO News called the coroner’s office in the town the plane crashed, to the shock of the clerk that answered the phone. Poppel tweeted out that the clerk asked, “How did you hear so FAST?” And that’s where I think the real power behind Twitter lay. Something happens, and the Twitterverse knows instantly.

When Trending Topics were moved from the less-than-obvious search page, to the home page, I was quickly disappointed to find that memes were taking the place of information. #3turnoffwords and #3turnonwords hit the trends and are still being tweeted about. I’m not sure why I was so surprised by this. I expected there would be fun and games, but I suppose I didn’t imagine the games would quickly out weigh the information. I started thinking Twitter was losing a small bit of that information flow. It’s always nice to have a reminder that things just aren’t what they appear. I think that, most likely, Robert Scoble deserves credit for this one.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declares victory in the Iranian Presidential election, the government shuts down mobile phones, and access to YouTube and Twitter within Iran, opponent Mousavi accuses Ahmadinejad of rigging the election, and Tehran is set ablaze by protesters. Twitter is flowing with real-time updates, photos and videos of riots, and police action. Meanwhile, main stream media, specifically, CNN, is running Larry King discussing David Letterman vs Sarah Palin. Enter Scoble. “CNN: you should be ashamed. Horrid news judgment today. Absolutely horrid.” It didn’t take long for disgust towards CNN to migrate from FriendFeed to Twitter.

As I type this, #iranelection, #cnnfail, Tehran, and Mousavi are all in the top five Trending Topics. Although CNN has been the one graced with a failtag, it’s not the only main stream media that’s ignoring the events taking place in Iran. In a retweet, Scoble points out that all of the networks failed. Luckily, Twitter’s on this story. Otherwise, who else would?