Reading News on Twitter vs. Watching News on TV

Last Sept. 26, 2009, after a continuous 6-hour downpour from Typhoon Ondoy submerged most of Metro Manila, residents who couldn't wait for the NDCC to save their friends and families took to the internet and created their own online command center to coordinate rescue efforts.

Then, I was using only Facebook, but I noticed that most (if not all) of the info coming in was sourced from Twitter.  The almost instant access to news and various information available on the microblogging site convinced me to open a Twitter account.  The first 10 profiles I followed were all news sources of different categories, both local and global.

Nowadays I use Tweetdeck and Paper.li to read my Twitter timelines.  All I need to get updated quickly is by checking my info-junkie friends' timelines and certain hashtags.  Doing this has made 3 activities all but obsolete: watching the news on TV, reading news blogs, and using RSS readers.

Take for instance the #egypt and #jan25 hashtags.  Following them gave me frontline access to the latest happenings during the 18-day protests in Egypt that ended one old man's 30-year reign of terror.  More than that, the Google-Twitter partnership that spawned the Speak2Tweet service that allowed Egyptians to tweet voicemail, plus the Alive in Egypt service that translated the non-English voicemail, gave the rest of the world inside access into the emotions and sentiments of the Egyptians themselves.  No journalists or commentators interpreting what the feelings might be or how the events might pan out -- we were getting the truth as it is from the people who are actually involved in and going through the turmoil in Egypt.

Two hashtags that have taken up permanent residence in my Tweetdeck are #helpDOT and #RHBill.  They are the two causes that I'm passionate about these days, because I know I can contribute to these in personal and meaningful ways, and I am.  That is another reason why I like Twitter so much: you're able to create real and genuine connections with other like-minded individuals, and you can actually contribute.  Information dissemination is a powerful activity.  If you don't believe me, just check back on the DOT fiasco that was PKG.  What took the machine down?  That's right: us social media junkies.  In a large part, Pinoy tweeps.

I don't miss not catching the news on TV at all.  Reading news via Twitter lets me get right to the meat of the whole show: the news itself.  I can scan through the headlines quickly, pick out what is relevant to me.  No more time wasted on commercials, plugs, and unnecessary visuals.

So get with the program now.  There's a whole lot going on in Twitterverse.  You'll never be bored.