About a year ago, I wrote that for me, Twitter would hit a ‘real world’ tipping point when it was used by active participants in a unpleasant event (I was writing this around the time of the Virginia tech shootings) to actively record the events as they unfolded.
Well, browsing Techmeme, I see its happened, with the BBC reporting that Scoble (who else!) saw today’s earthquake in China being reported live through Twitter.
It’s clear that the centralisation of Twitter as a service is key to Twitter being able to provide the type of flow around events like this.
I feel a bit like I’m in danger of trivialising the tragic events in China, and so lets just say I’m grateful I have the luxury of even being able to reflect on such things in comfort and safety.