Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Using Twitter to Get Real-Time Info on Situation in Haiti

About an hour ago I was trolling the headlines for information on the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti today. The reports were not yet very informative other than that this is a huge disaster which caused much damage and loss of life.

Research done, I was about to turn off the computer for the evening when I saw the following tweet from Clarence Fisher:


I clicked on the usernames and began to read. And read. I was especially moved by following the picture that unfolded from @troylivesay's tweets. He is now up to 964 followers. I wonder how many he had prior to today.

Go ahead and give this use of social networking a try. If you don't already have a Twitter account, go to http://twitter.com/troylivesay and read his tweets there. Let the on-the-ground descriptions combine with what you hear from traditional news sources to give you a more complete picture. Let the tweets put a human face on the news.