This past week on August 6th, Twitter and Face weathered denial of service attacks. Although Facebook did not go down entirely, Twitter was hit hard. What I found out from this attack is just how much I depend on Twitter for news and information exchange.
Twitter is not just like an instant messaging program, although newbies when they first interact with Twitter equate it with instant messaging. It is more like a hotline to news and topics much like the old pre-Internet water cooler routine. With Twitter you are tapped in automatically as news happens. You get to hear it online first instead of from a news media resource. The people who pass the news on Twitter are usually eye witnesses and/or participants. Take Michael Jackson’s death. It was on Twitter before it was even reported on TV or the radio.
Here’s another example, Ashton Kutcher film star and Twitter Poster Boy had an emergency plane landing on August 6th with fire trucks all around. Not only did he tweet about it, but then offered a special password to all Twitter followers to meet up with him at a specific New York City at a club and get half priced drinks on him to celebrate life. It was a close call that Twitterverse heard about as it happened.
Twitter has forever changed the way we interact with others, promote ourselves, get news and information, and share the same. Twitter is not the medium for kids as recent report stated that the majority of Twitter users are business professionals between the ages of 34 and 52, so don’t think this is another “My Space” thing. Twitter is for us “big kids”.