Writing a diary or a journal is old news.

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Is what it is all about these days. Interactions between platforms, instant communication and feedback. Suddenly a target audience of a few because an audience of many.

I’ve just bought myself an iPhone and have found it incredibly easy not online get online and use, but through the app store. Download a wordpress app to post this article, download a twitter app to see what is going on (I created a twitter account last night) and post (photos included).

With a little bit of work I was able to integrate the two together on my site automatically. So I thought I would share a quick story about how I first used twitter, before creating an account.

A co-worker and I were having lunch outside, enjoying a burger at the the local fish and chips shop (Fish Kitchen) and we started seeing smoke in the air. We all had guesses of what it was and with our bad sense of direction we didn’t get close. On the way back to work we started seeing the news choppers flying over head, we knew this had to be big news and with a tip from a passer by, it sounded like a pub had caught fire.

So we made a competition to see who could find out what was happening first back in the office. I did a few searches on google news. It didn’t turn up any results, so I thought I would try twitter for the first time. With a few searches of ‘pub fire’ I soon found out that it was the Norman Hotel that had caught on fire. A few more tweets and I found out the #hashtag which had been created and I started getting photos of what was happening in real time. I had clearly won the competition and it at least 15 minutes before the mainstream media posted anything. Around 5 minutes later before mainstream media had ant photos. Another 5 – 10 minutes before they posted video from the choppers.

The craziest thing was that it was twitters that had posted links to the news articles as they were been posted, not the media themselves. In a competition to get the news out. Social networking sites like Twitter were miles ahead and it really gave a sense that the power is with the people. I even found that I was really well informed and there were photos the media just didn’t have (A guy working opposite took a photo as he was clearing the area, another one with fire trucks, etc).

Now that I’m on twitter, have an iPhone in my pocket. I’m ready to bring you “the news first”, “as it happens”, because why write it down on paper for just myself?