Case Study (Local/Overseas)

Maybe the best piece of advice I can give for using Twitter to cover breaking news is to study how @statesman covered last week’s terrorist attack in Austin, Texas.
I almost didn’t blog about this. The attack occurred last Thursday as I was winding down work at Gazette Communications and preparing to move out to Arlington, Va., to start my new job. I took quick note on Twitter and might have let it pass. But it was a great example of community engagement and that’s my new job, so I decided I had to take the time to analyze the performance of @statesman Social Media Editor Robert Quigley in engaging his community through that breaking story. I’m writing about this several days after the fact because this is the best example I have seen of a media organization showing how Twitter can be a powerful tool for coverage of a breaking story.
My previous posts on the value of Twitter in breaking news have shown how citizens using Twitter provided a much better, faster account of breaking stories than professional media organizations did. I am pleased to show such an excellent, if belated, example of a professional news organization showing the potential for engaging through Twitter in a breaking story. (I should note that University of Texas student Douglas Luippold beat me to this.)
After I read through Quigley’s coverage, I emailed him some questions. I’ll intersperse his answers with my observations, presented as a strategy for a news organization using Twitter to cover breaking news:

Inspirational Use Of Twitter

1) We get to know more Friends.
2) Gets Update from your Favourite Stars or Idols like when or where are they going to perform.
3) We get to know what are some of Hobbies or Interests our friends have.
4) Get to chat with your friends Without Having To Pay Any Money.
5) We can use Twitter as a Gmail Notifications.

Cyber Wellness Tips

1) Never reveal your REAL name or PERSONAL Information.
2) Never agree if strangers ask if you could Meet Up.
3) Put your nickname which you like and is OUT OF THIS WORLD.
4) Do not put a picture of yourself as your Profile Picture.
5) Practice Selective Disclosure of information. There is no need to lie in order to protect yourself.

Dangers Of Twitter

1) We might be Too Addictive to Twitter we can't stop using it.
2) Someone can Learn More About Us just by reading through our daily tweet.
3) Each Tweet Stay Forever On The Internet.
4) Person we follow might not be the person We Think He/She Is.5) Your account might be overflowed with SPAM.

Interesting Facts About Twitters

1) New York has the most Twitter profiles with Los Angeles, Toronto, San Francisco, and Boston right behind.
2) The First Tweet On Twitter was by Jack Dorsey and the tweet was “Just setting up my twttr” on 21st March2006.
3) Twitter has Over 65 Millions Tweets Everyday and that averages to 750 tweets per second.
4) Twitter is expected to make 1.54 Billion Dollars by the end of 2013 with over a billion users.
5)Twitter was founded in 2006 and for the first 3 years as a company Twitter made A Total of ‘Zero’ Dollars in revenues.
6) The highest level of Spam was in August 2009.
7) There are more Females users than Male users in Twitter.
8) The top Twitter User is Ashton Kutcher.
9) 61% of languages use in Twitter is English.
10) The Top 3 Countries using Twitter is United State followed by Indian And Japan.