CNN Gets Butt Kicked By People on Twitter

OK, so last night something else really weird happened.

My friend Luke Kilpatrick (he lives a couple of blocks away from me) invited me down to the Ritz at about 9 p.m. tonight. He met up there with a couple of geeks. While there he introduced me to Philip Kaplan (the guy who started AdBrite and Fucked Company), Scott Raymond, and Rachel Luxemberg, who is a community manager at Adobe.

It was dark, so I couldn’t see who else was there around the fire ring out back.

Anyway, I was pretty passionate about this CNN story, since every hour we had been turning through the channels trying to learn about Iranian news (my wife is Iranian and hadn’t been able to call her relatives in Tehran). So I was telling Luke about how Twitter was totally kicking ass over CNN (CNN, when I kept turning it on, had nothing on and, instead was playing shows like Larry King Live with a couple of guys who build motorcycles).

That’s when I heard a voice say “what are you saying about Twitter?” I looked up and it’s Evan Williams, founder/CEO of Twitter. Oh, hi!

Anyway, I congratulated him on kicking USA’s media’s behind (CNN wasn’t the only one who wasn’t covering the Iranian protests). We talked about a variety of things, including family (he has a kid on the way, his wife was there too) and the future of Twitter.

Source: Scobleizer

Hat Tip: @curtmercadante (on Twitter, of course!)

Commentary

With the advent of new Internet messaging systems, specifically Twitter, the Gate Keepers in the Media no longer have a monopoly on what gets reported, and what they can choose to ignore.

I look forward to the day when the first thought of most people who are looking for infomation on a breaking news event will turn to Twitter, Friend Feed and other platforms before they even think about turning on the TV Set or picking up a newspaper.

Another example is the NCGOP 2009 Convention this weekend. For those who wanted to know what was going on, Twitter was the place to be if one wanted to know. It also had the advantage of allowing people to comment on the event and to also engage in a little back and forth commentary and good-natured jabs at each other. At least on my part (o_0)