Posted by
Corthell on Tuesday, June 23, 2009 7:25:28 AM
The people of Oz are now behind the curtain and Twittering the strings of the Big Dic(tators)
As thousands of Iranian protesters took to Tehran streets over the past week, the exploding Twitter universe, or "Twitterverse," proved yet again the value and prominence that micro-blogging and social networking have become in today's world of instant communication.
Even Defense Sec. Robert Gates said the Pentagon is monitoring "tweets" from Iranians who are under violent attack by regime police and military.
Though the Iranian government reportedly blocked opponents of President Ahmadinejad from sending emails, they were outwitted by another form of technology – Twitter. Several Twitter sites were used by students and others protesting the results of last week's presidential election, in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (according to the Iranian government) swept to victory over challenger Mi Hossein Mousavi.
Bloggasm focuses on the media, with an emphasis on online media and journalism. Simon Owens, publisher, sought to determine how many "retweets" any given Iranian protester's tweet message was getting from micro-bloggers monitoring the steady stream emanating from Iran. His conclusion? Tweets coming out of Iran were retweeted an average of 57.8 times.
Pictures from Iran
Pages and pages of photos taken of Iranian rioting, in real time uploads, can be seen at PicFog.
Videos from Iran
World citizens have been transfixed by the Iranian demonstrations, as we monitored developing events on a stream of vids pouring in to YouTube from citizen journalists using cell phones
and mini-cams.
One video that immediately went viral on the web on June 20 was a 47-second clip of a young woman dying from a sniper wound. The video is graphic and YouTube issues a warning before allowing viewers access, but that hasn't discouraged thousands from posting it on Twitter and their blogsites. Full Story