Digital Tsunami: Breaking News at Breakneck Speeds
1. Digital Tsunami: Breaking News at Breakneck Speeds
SXSW Panel, March 17th, 2009
Alex de Carvalho
@alexdc
alexdc.org
StartPR.com
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
2. “People need information as much as water, food, medicine or
shelter. Information can save lives, livelihoods and resources.
Information bestows power.”
- Markku Niskala
Secretary General of the International Federation of Red Cross
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
3. The challenge:
Tracking
Organizing
The random stuff
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
4. Every Cell Phone Is A Media Outlet
http://mobileactive.org/mobile-voice-use-mobile-phones-citizen-media
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
5. Mexico Earthquake
April 12th, 2007
andresb my whole apartment creaked and bent a little half a minute ago from twitterrific
andresb The strongest tremor I’ve felt since I’m here
BioXD Acaba de temblar :S….estuvo muy fuerte
andresb woooooow, earthquake in Mexico City
CyberMJ75 Damn! Just experienced an earthquake. That sucker lasted some minutes.
paranoideo Very strong earthquake in Mexico City, paranoideo.com is reporting live (:P)
earcos Very strong earthquake in Mexico City, VivirMexico.com is reporting live (in
spanish, sorry)
Satrina Earthquake in Mexico City, was long and a little bit strong
dotmotion That was a hell of an earthquake.. and I’m on a 7th floor… I still feel sick
rogeriogal Earthquake in Cuernavaca, just passed. I’m still dizzy.
trisignia wow, earthquake in Mexico City…my first ever
helmi Mexico earthquake now on german news tv
robblatt Earthquake still not on cnn.com (at approx. 11:10 p.m. Pacific)
Robert Scoble http://scobleizer.com/2007/04/12/mexico-city-earthquake-reported-on-twitter-first/
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
6. How did I find out about the Mexico City
Earthquake? On Twitter. As soon as people started
reporting it on Twitter, I looked at the USGS maps.
The Twitterers beat the USGS by several minutes.
-Robert Scoble
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
7. China Earthquake
May 12th, 2008
“I reported the major quake to my followers on Twitter before the
USGS Website had a report up and about an hour before CNN or
major press started talking about it.
How did I do that? Well, I was watching Twitter on Google Talk.
Several people in China reported to me they felt the quake WHILE IT
WAS GOING ON!!!”
-Robert Scoble
http://scobleizer.com/2008/05/12/quake-in-china/
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
10. Most mainstream media are
just broadcasting ...
Photo by juliebee http://www.flickr.com/photos/69148125@N00/326386880/
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
11. ... rather than listening and tracking reports from the ground
(from users of twitter, flickr, etc.)
Photo by Paulo Alegria http://www.flickr.com/photos/49457106@N00/280789933/
✤
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
12. We need new ways to identify news as it breaks
http://startpr.com
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
13. Mumbai Attacks
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&ll=18.922445,72.832242&spn=0.007054,0.007864&z=17&msid=105055855763538009401.00045c9d8b16af3ad1008
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
24. However ...
Erroneous Amber Alert Spread Via Twitter
February 17, 2009
“AMBER ALERT A 7 yr old girl was taken by a man driving a newer silver truck.
The license plate reads 72b381 please please pass on.”
Utah authorities claimed the reports to be a false instance of an Amber Alert and
issued a statement.
However, Twitter users continued to report the missing girl, going so far as to tie up
the lines of police stations across the country with tips on the supposed abductor...
http://instantamber.com/news/breaking-news-erroneous-amber-alert-spread-via-twitter/
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
25. An attempt to provide context
“Twitter messages were providing incredible focus on the
important subtopics that had yet to become popular in the
traditional media… what I found most interesting… was
that news articles did exist on these topics, but just
weren't valued highly enough yet r not focusing on the
right stories (as the majority of tweets were).”
-Vik Singh
Architect, Yahoo! BOSS diy search engine
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
26. (1) Real-time search +
freshness
(2) Stitching social
commentary to
authoritative sources
of information
-Vik Singh
http://tweetnews.appspot.com/fresh?q=earthquake
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
27. Building a news organization from scratch on Twitter:
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
28. The challenge:
Tracking
Organizing
The random stuff
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
29. Social media allows not only for the reporting of
hyper-local breaking news, but also for distributing
helpful information after the fact and particularly for
organizing collective action to help deal with crises.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
30. Instedd
quot;It's a familiar scene. Following the onset of a major disease
outbreak or natural disaster, government agencies, non-
governmental organizations and the local community must
join forces and act quickly to alleviate suffering. You, your
colleagues and groups that don't normally work together
now need to communicate, assemble teams, share
information, make plans and coordinate a response.”
http://instedd.org/
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
34. The challenge:
Tracking
Organizing
The random stuff
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
35. We can do a lot to prepare in advance, by learning to
✤
better identify breaking news (and providing tools and
training to people) and by planning effective methods
for crisis response using social media.
We can also work to minimize the impacts of the most
✤
random types of breaking crises and their
consequences.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
36. “Oh, during the quake we didn’t lose power, didn’t
lose cell phones, and didn’t lose access to Twitter.
During a really big quake there will be lots of
infrastructure down, but SOMEONE will be able to get
messages out and that’ll really be interesting to watch
how information gets shared if, say, all of San Francisco
isn’t able to communicate with the Internet.”
-Robert Scoble
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
37. Digital Tsunami: Breaking News at Breakneck Speeds
SXSW Panel, March 17th, 2009
Alex de Carvalho
@alexdc
alexdc.org
StartPR.com
Wednesday, March 18, 2009