Twitter – The New Breaking News Source

Friday was a big day in the world. Multiple terrorist attacks across Europe and the SCOTUS ruling in the United States about same-sex marriage. Now, I’m not going to get into opinions or details or anything, because that’s not what this post is about.

This post is about one question. Where do you get your breaking news from? With the advent of smartphones, we have such cool technology in our hands. More often than not, I look to twitter to bring me breaking news.

For instance, Friday morning, I was at the gym when Fox News had their reporter standing on the steps of the Supreme Court. My machine was lame and I had no way to listen to the TV on the wall, I could only watch. The lower third simply read “SCOTUS Makes Decision on Same-Sex Marriage” or something along those lines.

So, I went to twitter and about five seconds later, I saw this tweet.

 
 

 
 

I know, not as many people are on twitter as Facebook – but here’s the thing. Facebook has ditched timely updates in favor of money and trying to predict what you like. Most posts you see on your Facebook newsfeed are at least three hours old. In moments where news is moving fast, Facebook simply can’t keep up.

And it’s all their own fault.

Twitter is the new breaking news source. Here's why. #socialmedia Click To Tweet

Twitter is perfect for breaking news because the nature of Twitter is much faster than Facebook. Twitter just moves fast. I think I read somewhere that the life of a tweet is twenty minutes? Give or take?

Twitter is also super easy to use on your phone. The mobile apps are compact and wonderfully designed, which gives you the ability to obtain plenty of information in a quick amount of time. The point is, Twitter is fast and so is breaking news. If you really need breaking news updates, you can even turn on notifications on your phone for when certain accounts (like CNN Breaking News) tweet, so it takes just seconds to get the news.

Twitter is going to be (if not already) the new breaking news source.

Do you use social media for breaking news? If so, what platform do you use?