More on Iran

While my previous post on Twitter and Iran stands, I have ditched following Twitter first hand. I’m still tracking the New York Times’ Lede Blog and am also now following Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish, which functions as something between the Lede Blog and Twitter. It posts a daily recap of the events as recounted on Twitter, functioning as something of a Twit-editor.

These are great news sources for people with internet access at work. For others, it seems traditional news media are probably more helpful.

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The impact of Twitter itself might be less than some of stated, Nicholas Thompson argues.

But Thompson doesn’t take his point (that Twitter is acting more of an international news disseminator) to its logical conclusion; that is, at a time of great upheaval Twitter allows unprecedented journalistic access to even a closed country. Even if Iranian protesters are not communicating that much among themselves via Twitter (on a per capita basis, at least), the reports that are coming from Twitter are the backbone of news sources that fellow Iranians will rely on to understand what is happening in their country.

This, to me, seems very important.