The social media revolution (in 15 minutes)

Here is a post from probably the world’s most prolific Twitterer, Robert Scoble (he follows and is followed by upwards of 6,000 people). http://scobleizer.com/2007/10/08/do-i-read-all-twitters/

While his behaviour will never be replicated in the mainstream – there are some interesting clues in his behaviour that point to the possible future role of Twitter. Most particularly his first observation – that news breaks first in Twitter (in the Twittersphere – someone must have already coined that term – if not I lay claim to it).

It therefore occurred to me that Twitter (or something Twitter-like) could actually become what the press release once was – i.e. the quick “heads-up” that there is something someone wants you to pay attention to. Most journalists used to be (and still are to an extent) buried under a mountain of press releases- as Scoble is under Twitter – with only a very few not ending up going straight in the bin, but for all this, until recently they were the most effective way of drawing widespread media attention to a story. Perhaps Twitter could be this for social media? If Twitter does move out of the geekstream into the mainstream I certainly think that building and spreading information through Twitter networks will be an important tool in the social media PR armoury.