140 Characters Are Worth a Thousand Words

Journalism has always had restrictions. There is always the constant struggle to find the newsworthy over the unremarkable, the ethical over the unethical, and the truth over falsified information. Lately, journalism has added another restriction to the list: 140 characters.

Micro-journalism, in the last 3 years, has become something of a mainstream addition to news and broadcast journalism. Twitter, a micro-blogging social network that allows users to communicate with other friends, known as followers, has been on a shocking rise since it's inception 3 years ago. With it's ease of use and it's ability to connect people instantly on the computer and on the phone, it is no surprise that Twitter has seeped into the lives of hundreds of millions of people across the globe.

News and journalism have always had a knack for clinging on to instant communication. The faster the information can be provided to viewers, the more journalists admire it. It is no wonder that Twitter has affected the broadcast journalism world heavily.

Los Angeles journalist Erin Kotecki Vest is very familiar with the infusion of Twitter and Journalism.

"Twitter was a game changer for me. While blogging was an effective form of communication, twitter took that power and multiplied it times 50. Now I wasn't just blogging politics, I was tweeting back and forth with politicians."

And the buck did not stop there. Politicians were just part of the new wave of public officials using Twitter. Celebrities, athletes, corporations, local businesses, journalists, and most importantly, the public, were pouring in. Comscore Inc., the renowned internet marketing research firm, confirms a 1,271% increase in unique visitors between October 2008 and October 2009. This soar in users can be blamed upon various media events in the past year, but none more than the 2008 Presidential Elections and the Iran Elections.

When asked about the possibilities of Twitter as a news reporting service, Ohio State University social media guru Forrest Kobayashi said, "Twitter has had a profound impact on journalism and the news media. Its slowly become a medium for citizen journalists to spread their message in real-time. The possibilities are incredible and will continue to grow. As more and more people sign up for the service, there will be a dramatic shift towards citizen journalism as a big way in how we receive our news."

In the past two years @BreakingNewsON, a radical news breaking service that trends to report breaking news from around the globe before any other media organization, has become the go to spot for "news junkies" and twitter users. Working around the clock, the hundreds of journalists across the globe are able to "tweet" in Breaking News as it happens, keeping tabs on any new developments.

"The Internet has been known to deliver the news faster than a newspaper or other printed material, but Twitter has made this all possible in a relatively fast and concise manner. When an airplane fell into the Hudson River in New York City, the first photo of its landing appeared on Twitter. It goes to show that 140 characters or less can sum up most, if not all, situations," says Mashable.com Events Director Brett Petersel.

With more than 7+ million views a month and more than 1.5 million followers on Twitter according to Alexa rankings, Mashable has bookmarked its name as the top social media news blog on the globe.

Twitter's impact on Mashable has been huge. Every reporter on the site constantly updates their Twitter accounts, adding links and articles to make sure followers are always up to date on the new developments in the social media world. Mashable, however is not the only group to use Twitter to spread news feverishly.

CNN was one of the first news organizations to see Twitter's ability for what it was and harness it. During emergencies, it was useful for CNN to keep their eyes locked on tweets pouring in. In October of 2007 government emergency services would tweet constantly abou the California fires, alerting homeowners and regions of the flame's proximity. Local police would use Twitter to evacuate regions in danger of being consumed by the flames while relief organizations like The American Red Cross posted sites where relief camps had been set up.

The 2008 Mumbai attacks brought upon a new surge of Twitter use. With thousands of Indian civilians and tourists caught in the middle of the terrorist plot, Twitter was the fastest way to spread information. CNN referred to the crisis as "the day that social media appeared to come of age." Twitter user naoimeve wrote: "Mumbai is not a city under attack as much as it is a social media experiment in action." At one point, the Indian government asked for live Twitter updates from Mumbai to cease immediately, as the updates conflicted with security efforts.

Twitter's reach extends even into the last frontier, as International Space Station astronaut Mike Massimo, better known as @Astro_Mike would tweet from outer space, constantly sending photographs of the Earth horizon and his crew.

Now the only question remains, where does Twitter go from here? After extending to 60 million users this past September, experts say it's still only up from here. Experts like MSN Money's Andrew Jeffery.

"Twitter will be remembered as the peak of the social networking bubble. Basic information [on Twitter] appears in triplicate upon triplicate, and the chore isn't finding a piece of data, but figuring out if it's worth, pardon the expression, the paper it's printed on. By giving every human with access to the Internet a voice and concurrently allowing each of those humans to 'listen in' on the thoughts of other humans, Twitter allows each of us to construct our own condensed version of the rest of the world. Citizen journalism will evolve beyond reason."