The United States celebrated Thanksgiving today, which was punctuated by the news of tragic events unfolding in Mumbai, India. And while Fox and CNN provided continuous streams of professional reporting, Twitter offered a continuous stream of raw data and commentary that drew International attention.
In a remarkable acknowledgement to the micro-blogging service, this article about the Mumbai tweets indicates that Indian authorities are appealing to tweeters not to provide strategic information lest they tip off the terrorists.
The power of Twitter can be seen in a Twitter search for ‘Mumbai’. To perform the search, go to http://search.twitter.com/ and type in the word ‘Mumbai‘ into the search field. The resulting page will be a continuous stream of comments generated by anyone posting on Twitter with the hashcode ‘#mumbai’.
Basically you will get a real time stream of comments from people in and around the events; citizen reporters giving the news raw and uncut.
Comments seem to include eye witness accounts of live action, from people who are reporting on what they see in real time. The action is fast and furious, and more exciting at times than watching events unfold on TV.
Twitter is a powerful tool, not only for watching events unfold around the world, but also to perform research on aspects of your social marketing strategy. With a real time stream of feedback, comments, and information about your product, your competitor’s products, and related trends, the amount of instant feedback you can collect is truly amazing.
