Twitter is... a Human Seismograph?

If you were following LA tweeters last week, then you would have heard about the earthquake first hand, before it hit the news wire. Here's a couple of screen grabs from my Twitter stream.

Twitter, blogging and camera phones have transformed us into citizen journalists. Need more examples?

When Captain Sully skillfully landed his Airbus 320 in the Hudson, the image was captured on Twitter. ABC 7 Chicago seeks content from the public.

On the scene, instant images and stories. More eyes on the street, much like the concept of community policing. They can't be everywhere. With this comes some issues. We are not trained and are not held to any professional standards.

Remember, always consider the source, this is the internet after all. Recently, some people I follow started creating phony ReTweets (RT). They made up tweets and added "RT @recognizedname" to make it appear that "@recognizedname" tweeted it. (I was going to use "somebodyfamous" until I searched it and found out there really is somebodyfamous) Is it too easy to fake a tweet? What happens when a respected Twitterer with a five figure following falls for a fraud sourced story or a phony RT? They want to be the first in this crazy world of instant news and jump on the story so they can get the scoop and publish it without fact checking.

The tools we have at our disposal can be used for good and bad, you must decide the direction.