working with "old" and new media

Reading Sophia's article about new and old media I can only say that for sure we get into new times. Times where everyone has to find the best way to take advantage of what new media can offer to old media and of course new media to learn from years of experience and avoid, the users of them, the same mistakes.
New media can't replace what we have in our mind as a traditional information of source but for sure they can walk ahead together. As society, we need both, we have to use both, we have to advise both. Besides the more sources we have about what is going out there the better it is. The most amazing fact is that we can choose the source anymore, we can choose from where we get the information, the comments, the analysis!
We become from passive receivers, active participants.
We can share what we think, what we see, what we know in seconds with other people, with audience around the world but even we want or we like we can't be valuable commenter, analyst.
We don't have to wait old media to bring us close to what is happening but we can read or get the latest information almost in real time and then waiting old media having the professionals to explain them to analyze them.

The last years is true that old media were confused about what they have to do first; to send the information, to share the facts or to analyze them. It seems that nowadays things get clear. New Media become the fast media, the real time media, the interactive information source and Old Media keep the professional role to analyze, comment in more professional way. Of course both sides and areas can be mixed but both sides turn to know where they have to focus!

More and more Things drive us to moment that we choose from where we get the information, we share the information, we spread news and we exchange knowledge without the old media filtering!

/ga

Twitter, more important than traditional media to inform people

The last days Athens go through a really huge and serious demonstrations, disasters and of course battles between anarchists and police.
Athens Center now is almost completely destroyed. One interesting thing among others was how impressive was the fact that Twitter, this micro blogging miracle won the race to inform people.
Everyone using a mobile or his computer became a front line correspondent.
But as in all things, it’s more probable to grasp the idea of something if you participate in it, rather than judging as an observer
Lines of what is happening in real team in city's streets were arriving every second to subject #griots. People through twitter were giving what was happening on the streets, where to go, how to protect each other.

Twitter delivers anymore the news faster than media!

Had it been only for status updates, I’d still consider it silly, but it turned out that Twitter evolved into the so-called micro-blogging platform which has potential and momentum.
Messages are instant, short (hence easier to read), spread around all followers immediately, it allows personal communication and it’s accessible on-the-go from virtually anywhere on Earth there’s cell signal. If you provide useful content, people follow you and get informed; you can evangelize and promote your stuff and services; you can get the news first.
Get the news first? Write the News First! Send the news first! Be around, comment what is going on around!There’s no “breaking news” sessions in Twitter, that’s only in TV.

Through Twitter all the news are breaking!

But the latest tragic incidents in India, showcase (in a very sad way) that the microblogging platform is not only a news source, but the news come faster than traditional media.
People knew more about what is going in Athens or in Mumbai some weeks ago, or things about American elections through Twitter. And they got more information, or real time, in raw format... without any kind of editing from any kind editors.
Traditionally, the power of information was a privilege of the media, so when people begin to claim back some part of it, it sure is not a small thing.
De-centralizing the news sources and spreading it to individuals around the globe could potentially harm long-standing balances in society. People-casting is radically different from news media, yet quite powerful.
The strange thing with people is that there are too many of us and almost totally uncoordinated, yet from within this soup of (mostly useless) information, patterns begin to emerge and it’s not at all improbable for a small piece of information to cause a “hurricane” in a worldwide scale. It’s chaotic, and it can’t be controlled.
I’m pretty sure more and more power will come to the hands of individuals and if the media don’t jump on this wagon they’ll probably regret it.

Media lose their power to break the news, to make people feel surprise.

But perhaps the most thrilling aspect of this interconnected information chaos is how it can be (ab)used to deliberately inject information into the network.
At the same time newspapers or other more traditional media followed news flow through twitter where the information got up first!
Twitter is here to stay and get used from more and more and more people and not only geeks like me or others out there! Twitter is an amazing way to bring people closer, inform them faster, share information faster, opinions, ideas, fight in style but always in short and speedy mode!

/ga