I started writing this on Monday and left it in draft form…given recent events, it seems a bit eerily prescient…(I would be surprised if the scenario below hasn’t happened during the Virginia Tech shootings)
I had a not particularly nice thought the other day – imagine a Twitter or Jaiku user finds themselves in a highly unpleasant situation, that’s ongoing – say, a hostage situation. They start sms’ng the events as they happen to one of the services, and it’s immediately broadcast-able on the web.
What a macabre spectacle that will be…will it represent some major tipping point in perception of these services and the communications model they represent?
I remember hearing/reading transcripts of cellphone calls made from people in on September 11th – absolutely tragic and incredibly unsettling, of course – the above scenario would amplify that experience to a realtime global audience.
quick reflection based on events from a few day’s ago; I can’t find anything about live reports coming from those affected (people involved however used blogs/updates/etc to keep track of the aftermath)…although, perversely, the actual cause of this horror videoblogged his madness during the event.