As I sit here waiting for President Obama's unplanned address, I can't help but think of the power of social media and putting news into the hands of the people.
I've been on Facebook pretty much all night because I'm multi-tasking and my TV service happens to be out. If not for Facebook (I don't use Twitter), I doubt I would know that any of this is happening. Before CNN even broke the story, three of my Facebook friends had already posted the news via Fox News. Seriously? They beat CNN! I know because I checked CNN right after looking at Fox. If that's not impressive, I don't know what is.
In response to this, one of my Facebook friends said, "Moments like this make me appreciate the impact and potential of social media -- Twitter is amazing right now." Another friend probably put it best, though, when she said, "I get all of my news updates from Facebook. What more do you really need?" And that's a good question!
Well, I think we do still need the news outlets. After finding out that bin Laden was dead, I (and many like me I presume) went straight to the actual news source. It's something we've talked about over and over again--in this day, the news finds us...we don't find the news.
However, it's really a recursive process that's going on here. We catch wind of something from social media, go to the news source to learn more, post about it ourselves on Facebook (or Twitter), discuss it on Facebook, read more, post again, etc.--and the great thing is that this happens so quickly! In a matter of 30 minutes, I found out about this, read a handful of articles on two different news websites, read a little about bin Laden, posted on Facebook, and wrote this blog post. I'm also geared up to watch the address on my computer since, as I mentioned, my TV service is out!
So is social media powerful? Yep, I think so. And is it valuable? Sure is.
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