Twitter is fast becoming a hot channel for distibution of news.
Yesterday Dell held a press confernce about their new laptops and extended battery life. The actual press conference was held in San Francisco with feeds to venues in London and New Delhi. It was also webcast online, so anyone, anywhere in the world, could log on and see the conference. They also have a Twitter account called Digital_Nomads and were posting live updates. Anyone with a Twitter account could participate, comment and ask questions. If you did a search on Dell in Summize you could watch live comments come in from around the world as the event progressed.
When the earthquake happened in LA recently the news was out on Twitter just seconds after it hit. The first mainstream media report was four minutes later and the AP wire report came 9 minutes after the first Tweet. By then there were already thousands of posts on Twitter from people in all walks of life giving their personal experiences.
Twitter coverage ont he LA Earthquake.
This has all sorts of implications for PR folk – finding news, keeping up with events and a way to get your story out, fast.
Even The New York Times is active on Twitter. You can follow writers and editors who are Tweeting. There are also Tweets of their section headlines. (from the Twitter blog)
New York Times Writers using Twitter
@themoment
@CityRoom
@brianstelter
@TheLede
@TheCaucus
@DotEarth
Follow Section Headlines from The New York Times
@NYTimes
@NYTimesMovies
@NYTimesBooks
@NYTimesScience
@NYTimesArts
@NYTimesBusiness
@NYTimesSports
@NYTimesNational
@NYTimesHealth
@NYTimesTravel
@NYTimesFood
@NYTimesWeather
@NYTimesWorld
@NYTimesStyle
@NYTimesPolitics
@NYTimesMetro
