The Twitter Trend

I joined the world of Twitter today.

I was quite opposed to joining it as I thought who would ever want to follow my daily updates on Twitter? Ever since I started my MA I noticed how Twitter has made many achievements in getting the news quick with journalists' tweets or with the average citizen's post on the scene of a major event. I already knew it, but I became more aware of Twitter's power when I started my Journalism courses. Also, when John Gripton the News Editor of The Online version of Sky News came to Westminster and spoke to us, he mentioned Twitter almost a thousand times; focusing on how important it was for him as a source but also as a medium for spreading the news fast.

When I tried to describe Twitter, I didn't exactly know how to describe it, I just said "it is like a social networking website, where you publish your updates like on Facebook when you publish your status". Does the sentence even make sense? I honestly still don't know how it works, I tried to upload a picture but could not find a professional one so I kept it for later, then I just made my first post which was Randa: trying to figure out how this thing works" or something like that. But I have one follower already! Well I also subscribed to follow her so I guess it is not a major achievement. But I am also following Reuters, BBC, Sky News etc… Since my main purpose of joining Twitter is to enter the new world of online journalism, blogging, tweeting etc..

Anyway, I think those kinds of things are very important for us aspiring journalists: Trying to get into the journalism world especially the modern one. Even though I would not compare my blog posts or Tweets to those of an experienced Journalist, I have to keep this in mind " Citizen Journalism" you never know, I might be posting ideas or noticing something that really means something for the world of news?( plus I’m not only an average citizen I am still in the process of becoming a journalist) I guess my ideas and thoughts are still worthy maybe not breaking news worthy but at least news worthy if you take them from the angle of "exploring the learning journey of an aspiring journalist". (The purpose of my blog actually)

So Tweeting, Blogging, Facebook updates and all of this, it is quite important to have in order to know what's going on in the world or in a specific community. This is exactly what John Gripton, was saying. They were looking into all of these social networking websites to understand what happens, what are the latest issues that people are facing because after all, our audience is the people.

Here is an example, I am not in Egypt anymore but when I get into Facebook all I can see is groups about the upcoming match between Egypt and Algeria ( I also have a source that keeps me updated especially on those topics) but it was everywhere, pictures, groups, videos, because this game is so important for Egypt, we could be going to the World Cup! I also saw many things about The Aqsa Mosque, so mainly all the issues that matter to the people are spread on Facebook through groups discussions, pictures, videos and updates.

So yes, these websites are important, from now on I will not think I am wasting time by getting on Facebook and reading every single update of every single person on my Friends list, “no it's not Stalking, it's the new Journalism”.