Over time the nature of how information spreads throughout our civilization has changed from one generation to the next, starting from ancient times with word of mouth to the written word. The world’s first true information revolution began with the invention of the printing press, that’s when common people were able to access written materials when before that only the rich could afford them. Then in the twentieth century printing become more prominent with newspapers and magazines, and then the next big information leap happened in the nineties with the creation of the World Wide Web. Little did we know at the time how much it would change our world, much like how our ancestors viewed mass printing. Now it seems the next step forward has taken place with social media especially twitter, twitter has now allowed any person with a phone to become a reporter. If you have a great story or picture to share within a few minutes you have it distributed to millions of people worldwide, and in an instant you are an internet celebrity. It really brings forth the famous quote by Andy Warhol that in the future everyone will be famous for at least fifteen minutes, how true his statement has come to be.
I used to think that twitter was just a fad like MySpace or Facebook, but look at how much it is referenced in the news media. On the Sunday morning news shows like Fareed Zakaria or Candy Crowley where they talk about the past week’s events and which news agency got the scoop, and they never talk about who went on the air first it’s who tweeted it first. I myself use twitter as my main source for reading the news now, if you go to the Grow Florida twitter account you will see the lists I have set up for reading news for Florida and the World. Doing this I have access to stories that never make their ways onto television, and I usually know about them before they hit the big screen. In the past week the power of twitter has really shown its head with the George Zimmerman trial and the 777 plane crash in San Francisco over the weekend, the very first on scene report of the crash was from a survivor who tweeted a photo of the crashed plane. This picture was already retweeted to millions of people when news reporters were still miles away and scrambling to the scene, CNN was reporting what people were tweeting because their own reporters knew almost nothing at that moment. Years ago I went and saw a lecture by punk rock legend Jello Biafra in Ruby Diamond Auditorium at Florida State University, his message then was for us to become the media and with twitter that is what the world population has become. With your smartphone and the right opportunities you literally have the world in the palm of your hand, it’s hard to imagine how things are going to progress from here but I’m sure another information revolution is just around the corner.
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