The Internet is Everything.

The other day I was blogging for work for Everyday Communications, an educational communications company, and came across a response from one of our twitter followers. This follower is not a teacher, student, or parent, so I was about to delete them from all of our contacts so as to stay relevant. Luckily I did not, because I later realized that they were bringing new followers just for the sake of being interested in Education and the school system in general. Not only did this woman mention us in her blog and twitter but she created many Follow Fridays for us. After racking my brain to figure out why this was occurring I realized there are people out there that just sit at home and look for topics that interest them and research them, interact with them. It leads me to wonder if this is the new library. Twenty years ago, would this same person be going to the library and looking up educational communications company's? Would they be referring us to their friends with Word of Mouth or through letters? Would my advertising and marketing for us cover enough reach with just a newspaper or magazine? Its media and culture questions like these that interest me. The fact that the internet has become such a vital way of communication is insane. Everything is online now, and with society's 'get it now' mentality, there's less people fiddling around in the library checking out books for their information. If they want academic journals they will go online through an accredited academic source via search engine. Really, the question is, will this escalate, and what will this mean for libraries in general?

#thetwitterrevolution

I will be the first to admit that I could not understand Twitter for the life of me up until about a year ago. Why would anyone want to read the thoughts and quips of relative strangers? What do people even have to say at all hours of the day? Don't we already have Facebook for our friends? Eventually I gave in and made a Twitter account for my self, to see what all of the fuss was about and to see what my favorite famous people are up to. I quickly found out what a useful tool Twitter can be not only for entertainment but also for news and info. Musical artists now are announcing song releases and album releases via their Twitter accounts. Sports stars are keeping fans updated on injuries or locker room situations as they happen. Actors are tweeting about upcoming films and projects in the works. News is delivered in an instant. And once I got up to speed on the format and the lingo of the website, it became a fun tool to use. I now keep my feed up on my desktop at all times via a twitter app, something that I never would have thought that I would do one short year ago. I learned of Osama Bin Laden's death via Twitter, not television or radio or newspaper. I stayed up to date on numerous other news stories through my feed. Twitter is truly revolutionizing the way that people are sending and receiving information and consuming the media. Everything is instant and up to date, and the "old" media seems downright slow in comparison. I think that this media revolution is positive; people are more connected now than ever, and news is even more accessible and fast.

News no longer breaks....it tweets

As we all know, Osama Bin Laden has been shot and killed this previous Sunday. As I did my constant daily rounds of checking my social media networks on Sunday, I realized that I found out about this breaking news once again through Twitter and Facebook just like I have been finding out heading news for the past two years. I never watch the news anymore and find out just about everything online. Twitter has become the new CNN as the prime source for news as we find out now that Sohaib Athar's (@ReallyVirtual) tweet on Sunday morning was the first online indication that the U.S. was raiding Osama's compound when he tweeted about seeing helicopters drop off Navy Seals. Keith Urban (@KeithUrban) tweeted the first credible report that the U.S. had killed Osama prior to the news networks. Even before the president knew about what was happening back in the states, individuals following these two guys already had an idea what was going on. Within 12 hours, there was over 2.2 million tweets about Osama Bin Laden's death. This changes everything and the way news breaks out and journalism develops. As social media becomes our on stop for news, the professionalism and quality of journalism and news content could be different. We are all embracing letting Facebook and Twitter be our outlets for news, however we shouldn't completely let go of being misinformed since credibility isn't easily established online compared to on television. It's definitely something to think about as we rethink who we are really following on twitter or who we have as friends on Facebook. -Victor