Twittering the earthquake in China
BBC: Twitter and the China earthquake.
I reported the major quake to my followers on Twitter before the USGS Website had a report up and about an hour before CNN or major press started talking about it. Now there’s lots of info over on Google News.
How did I do that? Well, I was watching Twitter on Google Talk. Several people in China reported to me they felt the quake WHILE IT WAS GOING ON!!!
Over the next two hours I pointed at anyone who had info about the quake on my Twitter account.
It’s amazing the kind of news you can learn by being on Twitter and the connections you can make among people across the world.
I fear a large casualty loss. The epicenter was 50 miles from Chengdu, which has about 10.5 million residents. Already reports are coming across of buildings that have been knocked down.
dtan was the first Twitterer I saw talking about the quake. This was my first post in reaction to him.
UPDATE: Online Journalism Blog has a lot more details about what happened on Twitter tonight. From the Frontline blog has even more.
UPDATE2: Global Voices Online has links to videos and other Twitter and blog reports.
UPDATE3: here’s a timeline of what first Tweets looked like.
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May 12th, 2008 at 1:36 am
[...] Quake in China BBC: Twitter and the China earthquake. I reported the Twitter quake to my followers before the USGS Website had a report up.How did I do that? Well, I was watching Twitter on Google Talk. Several people in China reported to me they felt the quake WHILE IT WAS GOING ON!!! Over the next two hours I pointed at anyone who had info about the quake on my Twitter account. It’s amazing the kind of news you can learn by being on Twitter and the connections you can make among people across the world. [...]
May 12th, 2008 at 2:09 am
[...] first responder (and sometimes Blogger), Robert Scoble was on the news into the early hours of the morning, transfering news from his 23,200 followers to the 21,185 [...]
May 12th, 2008 at 2:14 am
[...] hyperaktive twitter og technød, Robert Scoble skrev her til morgen på sin blog: I reported the major quake to my followers on Twitter before the USGS Website had a report up and [...]
May 12th, 2008 at 2:45 am
The blog post has been updated and added to quite a few times since you linked, including a reference to your own link and being part of the conversation. Thanks again.
May 12th, 2008 at 3:48 am
Wow! :shock:
May 12th, 2008 at 3:50 am
[...] that a well known Tech Blogger, Robert Scoble was awake and monitoring twitter when it all went [...]
May 12th, 2008 at 4:03 am
It’s a great example how the conversation develop. :-)
May 12th, 2008 at 4:06 am
[...] over. It was just a few minutes after the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that hit China over night, and Robert Scoble was twittering it in real [...]
May 12th, 2008 at 4:06 am
Mahalo for keeping me informed of the Earthquake in China alerts as they were happening Robert. IT was very informative being able to be connected, and making sure I didn’t have to worry about Tsunami here in Hawaii.
I posted the highlights on Entrepreneur Mag’s new media blog on how I was alerted by TWitter first, and how you broke the story before major news sources even had a chance to get their people on the story.
http://snipurl.com/chinaearthquake
Stay “noisy” because that’s how I’m able to stay connected on what’s happening in the world from my lil island in Hawaii.
@CoachDeb
on Twitter
May 12th, 2008 at 4:14 am
guess nobody in Myanmar is using Twitter
May 12th, 2008 at 4:30 am
Man…who needs CNN?
May 12th, 2008 at 4:50 am
Robert, you had predicted a huge surge (and scaling issues) with Twitter in the event of a California major quake (perhaps almost any natural disaster I would think). You and I had discussed (or I had to you anyway) some of the implications of Twitter and other services in emergencies, and scaling issues etc.
May 12th, 2008 at 5:52 am
[...] examples: MG Siegler at VentureBeat, The Onlline Journalism Blog and the ubber-blogger/twitterer Robert Scoble) and even by some mainstream media tech-news observers like this quote from the BBC’s [...]
May 12th, 2008 at 6:17 am
OK so you were first to report the quake but you didn’t predict it. That would have been much more useful.
May 12th, 2008 at 6:22 am
[...] - the new AP - no cost - high impact (Thanks to Scoble for the links) Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can [...]
May 12th, 2008 at 6:32 am
Well there is probably going to be another good quake somewhere in the world in the near future. My friend just retired form the Memphis Earthquake Center, and this makes # 2 in a week or so.
I am sure the USGS was on top of it, they were just getting the facts straight, something that twitter will never get the hang of.
May 12th, 2008 at 6:43 am
Hey Robert,
Something ‘happened’ this morning while you were Tweeting about the dreadful China earthquake.
I’m wondering if this might be one of the moments where people start believing that Twitter is coming of age?
You got there quicker (by their own admission) than the world’s largest news gathering organization; The BBC.
It was good to be part of it - it’s just so unfortunate that it was a bad news story and not a good news story that was the trigger.
Jim Connolly
The Ideas Blog
May 12th, 2008 at 6:53 am
:( i am very sorry to hear this. Its quite strange all of this happening
May 12th, 2008 at 7:51 am
Robert, I wish you’d stop trying to convince us all that twitter is The Greatest Innovation In The History of Human Civilization.
You mean people with cell phones can get news out faster than a TV station? Isn’t this story 15 years old? Who cares what technology they’re using to accomplish this today vs. last year? Same shit, different pile.
May 12th, 2008 at 8:16 am
[...] many others, I woke up this morning to Twitter messages about a disaster in China: a magnitude 7.8 (at last report) earthquake in the southwest, with [...]
May 12th, 2008 at 8:18 am
[...] many others, I woke up this morning to Twitter messages about a disaster in China: a magnitude 7.8 (at last report) earthquake in the southwest, with [...]
May 12th, 2008 at 8:22 am
Touché to Flemming. If someone twitter but no one is following, does anyone care?
Please stop suggesting twitter is the answer to our communications questions. It’s an interesting tool. But to suggest twits knew about the quake before the USGS is simply naive.
Sure it can spread “news” fast,but so can cell phones and texting and IM. Hell, Paul Revere used a horse to let the town know the British were coming before the press could report it, what’s your point?
May 12th, 2008 at 8:24 am
[...] Robert Scoble a noted tech blogger and a Twitter addict first broke out the news on Twitter, even before the news could reach BBC. I was in college when I first received the alert via a text message. When I logged onto the internet the Twitterverse was completely busy with reports of the earthquake. [...]
May 12th, 2008 at 8:33 am
[...] Robert Scoble a noted tech blogger and a Twitter addict first broke out the news on Twitter, even before the news could reach BBC. I was in college when I first received the alert via a text message. When I logged onto the internet the Twitterverse was completely busy with reports of the earthquake. [...]
May 12th, 2008 at 8:57 am
>But to suggest twits knew about the quake before the USGS is simply naive.
Sorry, the USGS Website had this news three minutes after the first Twitterers did. Same thing with Mexico City earthquake.
May 12th, 2008 at 9:09 am
[...] seems to be a top source of breaking details for the moment; Many are writing of difficulties connecting to those at the center of the quake [...]
May 12th, 2008 at 9:10 am
>Isn’t this story 15 years old?
No. 15 years ago very very few had cell phones. Also, 15 years ago we weren’t all connected together with a service like Twitter. Try again.
May 12th, 2008 at 10:52 am
[...] is reporting that several people twittered the earthquake as it happened. This is no surprise, since roughly 1 out of every 5 people in China would be able [...]
May 12th, 2008 at 10:52 am
[...] in previous cases news broke very quickly on Twitter, Scoble even become some type of hub of information from the scene (Twitters local to the [...]
May 12th, 2008 at 10:56 am
[...] Institut, welches Erdbebenmeldungen in Echtzeit veröffentlicht. Wirklich Echtzeit? Robert Scoble behauptet, seine Twitter Follower bereits über das Erdbeben informiert zu haben, bevor es eine [...]
May 12th, 2008 at 10:59 am
Thousands reported the quake live as it happened using QQ (using both web client and SMS from cellphone), and it was picked up pretty much instantly on CCTV (stream live over pplive at my house). Strangely, tweetscan doesn’t let me search for 地震 (Chinese word for earthquake), so I guess we only get to hear what the echo-chamber has to say about the Chengdu quake.
Honestly, I reported the last Seattle earthquake as it happened, from my IM, and this is par for the course in China. Isn’t it a little bit silly to act as if twitter changes the equation?
May 12th, 2008 at 11:34 am
[...] the mainstream media scrambled to put up their “breaking news” headlines, on Twitter Robert Scoble was early to spread the news. From that moment there were live radio interview, pictures, google [...]
May 12th, 2008 at 11:40 am
weird, more into hyping technology than the effects on folks enduring the aftermath of such a big shaker.
May 12th, 2008 at 11:56 am
[...] all hype and can never be a serious news breaking platform. This tragic incidence proves otherwise. Scoble and Danny Sullivan both cover this development and have verified that Twitter was indeed used as a [...]
May 12th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Twitter doesn’t have to be mainstream to be useful, as this incident proves, I think. It is great to have the “backup” of news sites like the BBC, obviously, because they are organized to put out good content (pretty) fast. But the distributed eyes and minds of a million Twitterers will beat any news organization from now on when it comes to first views, especially @ big events like this quake.
May 12th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
[...] dead or injured. Unlike some, I didn’t get the news from the radio or TV — I got it from Twitter, a group-chat/instant messaging client that has been gaining in popularity as a real-time news [...]
May 12th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
[...] dead or injured. Unlike some, I didn’t get the news from the radio or TV — I got it from Twitter, a group-chat/instant messaging client that has been gaining in popularity as a real-time news [...]
May 12th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
[...] dead or injured. Unlike some, I didn’t get the news from the radio or TV — I got it from Twitter, a group-chat/instant messaging client that has been gaining in popularity as a real-time news [...]
May 12th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
OK; this appears to be that actual first tweet: http://twitter.com/hyson/statuses/809120812
The interesting thing about this is that dtan translated from someone who tweeted in Chinese, thus rendering the news readable to Scoble. So it proves that Twitter is a good way to *quickly* communicate news to people in the Silicon Valley echo-chamber.
May 12th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Nothing like the tragic death of thousands to show off the “usefulness” of the latest shiny-geeky chat toy, the fact that “news was late’ owes more to the godless Chinese Commie government’s tight-control over the press, and lack of decent reporting/news infrastructure. Just a few years ago, blogs were all the tragedy-reporting rage, now it seems people don’t much bother, cell phoning, SMS’ing and IM’ing.
So a big earthquake, thousands dead, hundreds buried alive, and the best spin you can come up with was that Twitter was somehow 180 seconds “faster”. Galling. You do realize, how cold, cruel and inhuman that makes you sound?
PS - You couldn’t work in some Seagate promo? The fastest earthquake-reporting tweets brought to you by Seagate, proud hard drive provider for Twitter (not sure they are, but if they are, every time you wet your pants over Twitter you could do a Seagate tie-in). Incidentally, WDC has gained 77% and STX has fallen 15% since you became their sponsor, and Watkins has gone “ice-cream scoop” crazy, with major investor calls for his head, KSR v. Teleflex ahoy, sue all SSD technologies, STEC now, Samsung and Intel later. Scoble Curse again. Oh, btw, some sort of earthquake in China.
May 12th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Actually you’re mistaken. The USGS has the data instantly, but doesn’t report it online until the data has been reviewed by a seismologist for accuracy.
The same could be said for CNN et al–they waited until they had facts to report. This was a major event, and it does no good to report anything until you have at least the minimum of facts. Didn’t want of your earlier twits show you guessing that the quake was 4.5, based on what someone felt? Without any understanding of how deep it was, the terrain, and the epicenter?
What is more important from a technology perspective is how earthquake proof those schools were, and how much did the Three Gorges dam and it’s huge reservoir add to the earthquake intensity. The latter is particularly important to people our area, because there is some discussion that the increased flooding in our area may actually be responsible for the increase in earthquakes in the New Madrid and associated faults.
So, can you twit up them facts?
May 12th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
[...] Robert Scoble. I’m sorry Robert, I enjoy when we hang out, I always like talking with you, I think you are the embodiment of the blogger. But ever since your posts dropped to less than 250 words most of the time I haven’t made daily stops to your site. [...]
May 12th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
[...] Quake in China [...]
May 12th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
[...] Robert Scoble and others are reporting that Twitter broke the story of the recent Chinese earthquake faster than even the United States Geological Survey. [...]
May 12th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Here’s an interesting WSJ post on what the earthquake magnitude means, and how unimportant the size of the quake is compared to the location of the quake. This quake was in a heavily populated area and that means the situation is going to be very, very bad.
One could say the same thing about whether twitter notes were before USGS posting–that’s truly incidental to the story, which is that tens, maybe more will die from this quake. The only saving grace is China is very well equipped to deal with these emergencies.
Nine hundred kids in one school alone. I can’t even imagine it.
May 12th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
The good thing about Twitter postings being ‘FIRST!!!1!’ before things like, the USGS is that it gets us to turn on CNN faster, so we can watch their coverage over and over while simultaneously consuming the self-referential coverage about Twitter on Twitter.
Seriously.
May 12th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Scoble, unless you are suggesting the USGS doesn’t know anything until its posted on their web site, I would respectfully submit you are high. There is no way in he’ll a Twit was able to type out a message before the USGS knew an earthquake had occured
May 12th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
BTW, how many twits did you get about the tornados in Missouri before the NWS or a news outlet reported it? Zero?
May 12th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
[...] Robert Scoble - z dumą poinformował o tym, że jego informacje o trzęsieniu ziemi w Chinach pojawiły się dużo wcześniej niż podała je jakakolwiek prasa, media internetowe czy nawet instytucje zajmujące się monitorowaniem trzęsień ziemi (chociaż tutaj zdania są podzielone). Wielu zwolenników twittera uważa tę sytuację za kolejny dowód na to, że twitter jest w tej chwili najszybszym kanałem komunikacji. [...]
May 12th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
I don’t recall any Twit’s a twatting about the Midwest earthquake, oh right, Midwesterners are just a buncha fly-over hicks not hip on the latest Web 2.0 doodad, how dare they even breathe.
May 12th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Here are two more timelines for those interested in raw data…
First report in RSS Feed - all sources: http://tweetip.us/lkn93
First report in RSS Feed - refined sources: http://tweetip.us/lkef6
May 12th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
[...] technology writers and a man with about 23,000 people following his Twitter stream. On his blog, Scoble explains: I reported the major quake to my followers on Twitter before the USGS Website had a report up and [...]
May 12th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
[...] y las 2.37:39 (hora local). A las 2.37.49, el popular bloguero tecnológico estadounidense Robert Scoble rebotaba la información a sus más de 23.000 contactos: “@dtan acaba de informar de un [...]
May 12th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
[...] Quake in China [...]
May 12th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
[...] post by Robert Scoble on the earthquake that rocked China brings out an important distinction about the nature of a distributed messenging service like [...]
May 12th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
It is now several hours since the event. Where would you go to learn about the earthquake, basic facts, possible impact on the local people, economy, Olympics? Would you go to Twitter first, blogs, or traditional news sites?
May 12th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
[...] many people reported that Twitter beat the USGS in reporting the earthquake in China today, so there is clearly huge value in these instant [...]
May 12th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
[...] Yo Scoble, I see you’re talking about Twitter and the earthquake, why not do a blogpost pointing to the redcross or some other org that can help? You’ve got 3 [...]
May 12th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
“I don’t recall any Twit’s a twatting about the Midwest earthquake, oh right, Midwesterners are just a buncha fly-over hicks not hip on the latest Web 2.0 doodad, how dare they even breathe.”
Christopher is so right. We in Missouri don’t need no stinkin’ Twitter. We got Aunt May and Sally Joe. Don’t need no durn tech-no gadget to get the news. Why, we jez wind up Aunt May and next thing you now? Everyone knows everything about everyone else’s bidness.
*spitooie*
Yup, what you call Twitter, we call the party line.
May 12th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Scobleizer you did a good job to make:
“Twitter before the USGS Website had a report up and about an hour before CNN or major press started talking about it.”
It also prove that we are in an age of everybody is “News Reporter and Receiver”. The power of internet and the freedom to speak on net. Please just report the truth, not the rumour.
So that CNN cannot just makeup the news they want!!
May 12th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
[...] Robert Scoble talks about another social network that has played a part in at least raising awareness about the earthquake. After the quake, phones were out or overloaded, and other forms of communication were damaged as well. But as the quake was happening people all over China and neighboring countries used twitter to give updates on what they were seeing and feeling. Text-messages do not take near the bandwidth of phone calls so they have an easier time getting through a log-jammed system and with Twitter they can be propagated quickly to thousands. Twitter had the news first and other social media followed quickly, hours ahead of official media. I do not know how much of this instant information was used for saving lives, but it certainly has a lot of potential for that. [...]
May 12th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
[...] Twittering the earthquake in China (tags: twittering) [...]
May 13th, 2008 at 2:16 am
[...] Robert Scoble: Twittering the earthquake in China [...]
May 13th, 2008 at 3:00 am
[...] Marc is absolutely right. In fact, the USGS picked up the quake about 5 minutes after the initial Twitter reports began. Many of us had a map of the quake region before the USGS could post one. Now it’s tempting to chide the experts for showing up late to the party, but frankly Twitter is an unfair advantage for the rest of us (side note: I hope folks at the USGS are following Twitter. They aren’t doing their jobs otherwise). It seems increasingly the web is pushing mainstream news services are in the business of confirmation and analysis rather than actual news dissemination. This missive from Robert Scoble pretty much sums up the role of the mainstream media in the minds of active Twitter users: [...]
May 13th, 2008 at 4:31 am
[...] dead or injured. Unlike some, I didn’t get the news from the radio or TV — I got it from Twitter, a group-chat/instant messaging client that has been gaining in popularity as a real-time news [...]
May 13th, 2008 at 4:31 am
[...] many others, I woke up this morning to Twitter messages about a disaster in China: a magnitude 7.8 (at last report) earthquake in the southwest, with [...]
May 13th, 2008 at 4:55 am
[...] to post this information for all readers. …CHINA ESQUIRE - http://www.chinalawandbusiness.com|||Comment on Twittering the earthquake in China by I Donated to Red …[...] Yo Scoble, I see you’re talking about Twitter and the earthquake, why not do a blogpost [...]
May 13th, 2008 at 6:12 am
[...] outlets were reporting it. Popular blogger Scoble was influential in getting the news out – see here for his account on how it went [...]
May 13th, 2008 at 6:17 am
[...] das u.a. über Naturkatastrophen informiert) und eine Stunde bevor CNN berichteteten. (Techmeme, Scoble, Search Engine Land, Online Journalism [...]
May 13th, 2008 at 6:41 am
[...] age in China quake: Gordon reports on the Twittering of the Chinese earthquake as being relayed by Scoble with evidence it was live tweeted by those who experiencing [...]
May 13th, 2008 at 7:04 am
Here’s a little bit of communications heresy for you guys who seem to get high on the stuff:
Does it matter?
Not that there was an earthquake, but that you should know about it faster than anyone else.
What difference does it make?
For you, and (more importantly) for the people affected.
I suspect that being constantly bombarded with news about which we can do nothing just makes us more apathetic - even for the things about which we *could* do something.
May 13th, 2008 at 7:08 am
If anybody is near the quake, perhaps you could do me a favor.
One of the problems that survivors now start facing is acute kidney failure–from dehydration plus crush injury (rhabdomyolysis). The treatment is i.v. hydration, which works well at least half the time.
For the survivors whose kidneys have already failed–who have no urine output despite lots of i.v. fluids–my company has something to offer. We’ve been issued a patent for treating acute kidney failure without having to use dialysis. We use a generic medication instead, which is given i.v. It may be that oral tablets will work as well.
I don’t know how practical this request is, but if you could somehow try to get word to those taking care of survivors of the quake to contact me at http://www.genomed.com, I’d be happy to share our “recipe” for acute kidney failure with them.
Best regards,
Dave Moskowitz MD
CEO & Chief Medical Officer
GenoMed, Inc.
Ticker symbol: GMED (on Pink Sheets)
“The public health company(tm)”
May 13th, 2008 at 7:08 am
Hi Robert
Just for the record, should this be useful, here’s my two (literally) cents about this story (in italian): http://tinyurl.com/5eam5g and http://tinyurl.com/5d6nbe
I’m with you, thinking that Twitter has been a great newstool. I really can’t understand why so many don’t get this
But as I said elsewhere, I think that “who’s first” is not exactly the main point: IMHO “how fast, how many” and “how open” is much more interesting. yes, the idea of a spontaneous, planetary collaboration in newsmaking it’s not so new anymore, but it’s still fascinating and I think it’s great to see it at work
May 13th, 2008 at 8:22 am
[...] Scobeleizer Link: BBC Link: Dutch [...]
May 13th, 2008 at 8:24 am
Brian, I love your posts and usually agree with you, but I think this goes too far in praising the speed with which a Tweet travels while not examining the quality, accuracy, and above all the value of the message.
First, I’m sure someone phoned someone at some point to report the quake. Before we talk about Twitter beating USGS, we might want to talk about how valuable Twitter is versus a phone — or yelling.
The quake probably did end up as a tweet before USGS got it. In addition to being a bureaucratic agency, USGS has to confirm and make sense of what it reports. It has a reputation and can’t go willy-nilly throwing out 140 character outbursts without doing due-diligence. It doesn’t surprise me that the twittersphere was alive with posts. But how valuable are those posts really? I’m guessing most of the posts were “OMG something is happening…” Even if you had anything valuable to share, you only had 140 characters, so good luck being articulate. There’s nothing actionable there, and any officials paying attention to the wrong people might miss some valuable, life-saving information. That’s not even touching the argument that Twitter is so cluttered and fragmented that anything potentially valuable is going to be buried; anytime something actually happens, Twitter turns into the online version of a mass-panic, so you’ll have even more tweets by people who also don’t know what’s going on. In that way, the lack of actionable information and chaos on Twitter probably ressembled the street-level frenzy in China.
Twitter works well for people at the top of the pyramid like you, but you may even feel less comfortable if the service is adopted too wildly. Right now, gurus like you are the loud voices in a big auditorium with a lot of empty seats. If mass adoption takes over, the authoritative voices may get drowned out, and with that the utility of the tool as a great connector may diminish.
I’ve been spending less and less time on Twitter and can say I’m better for it. It’s a great tool for people who can afford to spend all day on it, and I’m glad some of you can and report on your dialogues, but I can’t (if everyone spent all day on it, our world would grind to a halt). If something remarkable happens, I know you guys will hash it out and put the conversation together in a coherent blog post so that I don’t have to read 600 tweets to get the 2 pieces of valuable information out of it.
I should caveat all of this by saying I’m still a big Twitter skeptic. There is a lot of fascinating interaction and communication going on in the Twitter community, and that there is an exciting future for this kind of on-everywhere short communication, I also don’t believe that Twitter is the company to take it to the next level. But that’s another conversation about technology.
May 13th, 2008 at 9:14 am
really sad when I got to know this news. over 10k ppl dead. Can’t imagine what will happen to Olympipc if this happen in beijing.
May 13th, 2008 at 10:05 am
[...] Während das Erdbeben am Gange war, twitterten bereits die ersten Leute in China darüber. Dies verfolgte Scoble und fasste die neusten Nachrichten [...]
May 13th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
[...] Scoble to Twitter his 22,000+ followers, since he’d already alerted us to the fact that the earliest reports of the China quake had come through Twitter. Since then, Owyang has updated the post several times [...]
May 13th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
[...] how information spreads on Twitter. Take for example, first responder and blogger Robert Scoble who was on the news into the early hours of the morning, transferring news from the more than [...]
May 14th, 2008 at 2:29 am
[...] Seiten nicht erreichbar, manche sowieso gar nicht. Trotzdem ist das Netz um einiges offener. Auf scobleizer.com kann man aber nachlesen, wie der Blogautor über Twitter schon von der Katastrophe gewusst hat, [...]
May 14th, 2008 at 11:46 am
[...] If Scoble is right about Twitter being better than the USGS for getting news out, this will be the greatest feature of all time. [...]
May 14th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
The good news China is accepting aid. Burma is not. Please write a post titled “Help Burma Now!” Here is why: Help Burma Now!
May 14th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
15000 people dead, 30000+ still buried alive, and all you can come up with is that you are faster than USGS by 3 minutes and CNN by an hour? No word about the people that are suffering, no link to redcross or other donation websites. Do you realize how cold and cruel this makes you look?
May 14th, 2008 at 11:57 pm
you, Robert Scoble, should better donate some of your own money (im not talking about sponsorhip money, you would raise and by that creating even more publicity for yourself and twitter) instead of abusing such a tragedy for promoting yourself and a product, that for 99,99% of humanity is completely useless. none of the tweets from western twitterers in the sichuan area reported of any casualties after the quake. the people really affected by the quake are so poor that most of them cant even afford a mobile phone, let a lone internet. it was on official media to report the actual devastating death toll numbers. you spoiled it nerds should all take a break and do something for those (all around the world) who really are in need for “innovative” (=live saving) services
May 15th, 2008 at 10:33 am
Joe Jamin: do you realize how much of an idiot your comment makes you look? We were already talking about those things on my Twitter account. Geesh. Like there’s ANYONE in the planet who isn’t aware now that there was severe suffering in the aftermath of this quake. But two hours after the quake? We had no idea (I was even getting crap from other people for saying that there would be massive casualties).
May 15th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
[...] that evening, Scoble wrote a message on his blog, explaining how Twitter beat the USGS with information about the earthquake and sharing his [...]
May 15th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
[...] in the mainstream press (for events like helping the American student get out of jail in Egypt and coverage of the China earthquake) is helping to fuel this [...]
May 16th, 2008 at 2:35 am
[...] Volgens de data van Compete is het verkeer naar de website in de VS gegroeid tot 1,2 miljoen bezoekers per maand. De reden dat Twitter zo snel groeit is dat Twitter de afgelopen maanden veel aandacht heeft gekregen in de traditionele pers met acties om een Amerikaanse student uit de gevangenis te krijgen in Egypte en de verslaggeving van de aardbeving in China. [...]
May 16th, 2008 at 11:46 am
[...] Robert Scoble, a Twitterer and world-famous tech blogger, reported the earthquake to his followers “before the USGS website had a report up and about an hour before CNN or any major press started talking about it” according to his personal blog. [...]
May 16th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
why did so many people die in the china earth quake?
May 16th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
[...] http://scobleizer.com/2008/05/12/quake-in-china [...]
May 17th, 2008 at 11:56 am
[...] Article sur Scobleizer [...]
May 18th, 2008 at 8:31 am
[...] how information spreads on Twitter. Take for example, first responder and blogger Robert Scoble who was on the news into the early hours of the morning. He transfers news from the more than [...]
May 18th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
[...] Scobleizer: Twittering the earthquake in China [...]
May 19th, 2008 at 3:11 am
[...] this blog post, Robert Scobleizer, famous for having 24000+ followers on Twitter and receiving a tweet every [...]
May 19th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
[...] before it was even reported on USGS! Robert Scoble also does this, and recently he reported about learning of the recent China Earthquake before even USGS reported. Twitter has power in this [...]
May 21st, 2008 at 1:37 am
[...] Scolbe has bragged about “Reporting the news first on Twitter!” Twittering the earthquake in China on his [...]
May 22nd, 2008 at 12:36 pm
I am deeply saddened by the loss of life due to the earthquake in China. May their souls rest in peace. Survivors need urgent medical attention, food, clothing, shelter etc. We need to help the survivors in every possible way.
May 24th, 2008 at 1:54 am
[...] famous and successful people are using Twitter; like Darren Rowse and Robert Scoble. The reason I bought the e-book is because I have heard a lot of cool things about [...]
May 24th, 2008 at 3:57 am
[...] the Disaster Twitter impresario Robert Scoble says that news of the earthquake broke on Twitter an hour before media outlets were able to [...]
May 28th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Twitter got the story but weeping is NOT all we can do. In fact, many have already begun to take action. See http://www.http://chinaquake.zhan.cn.yahoo.com to learn about the nonprofit organization Chinese Earthquake Fund. This initiative, spearheaded by Shou-Ching Tang, MD, Director of Hematology/Oncology at Denver Health in Denver, CO, has been established to raise funds for medical supplies for West China Hospital in Chengdu. It is located 60 miles from the epicenter and is treating 1200 seariously injured victims, more than half need secondary surgery. You can find out how to donate money at the aforementioned website. Thanks for doing more than weeping for the victims of this devastating earthquake.
June 6th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
[...] he described in a post, it all began when Scoble was watching Twitter through GTalk and noticed people saying they felt a [...]
June 8th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
nice post for Earthquake Facts
June 19th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
[...] breaks the news about the China earthquake way ahead of the mainstream [...]
June 20th, 2008 at 2:17 am
[...] breaks the news about the China earthquake way ahead of the mainstream [...]
June 22nd, 2008 at 1:37 pm
[...] China, quite a bit of news surrounding the event was communicated via Twitter, even to the point of scooping major news outlets (although one might reasonable contest the quality of that [...]
July 15th, 2008 at 9:11 am
[...] a minor earthquake in VA. A few weeks later the earthquake in China was also emerged out of the twitter stream before it hit [...]
July 22nd, 2008 at 1:52 am
[...] in Philippines and Lebanon. Very recently, witness the role of of while micro-blogging, where Twitter enabled on-time reporting of China’s earthquake, in fact a full hour before CNN or other traditional media reported it, and even before the US [...]
July 31st, 2008 at 7:28 am
[...] residents used Twitter to tell their loved ones that they were okay. It’s not the first time the micro-blogging website has served this purpose in an emergency - the same thing happened during the earthquake China had [...]
August 5th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
[...] breaking news of a UK earthquake long before traditional media outlets were reporting. Robert Scoble did the same for the China earthquake earlier this year, and most recently, the July 29th [...]
August 6th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
[...] News is increasingly broken by ordinary people with iPhone Twitter apps or normal office workers sat at their desks updating Twitter by web or Gtalk and not by dashing reporters in long macs, or even agency reporters in far-flung bureaux. It is the canary in the news coal mine. [...]
August 9th, 2008 at 4:45 am
[...] like Robert Scoble are often lauded for getting it and, indeed,often seem to spend a lot of time highighting others who don’t get it, something that I myself was recently accused of doing in the comments of this post. But in fact [...]
August 10th, 2008 at 4:35 am
[...] the outside world as this article from Slate shows: Peter Scoble of Scobleizer fame may have indeed broken the story: “I reported the major quake to my followers on Twitter before the USGS Website had [...]
August 18th, 2008 at 8:27 am
[...] to breaking news “faster than everyone else.” Apparently receiving breaking news of an earthquake is okay, receiving breaking news of Olympic results when you live in a time zone with a broadcast [...]
August 31st, 2008 at 3:54 am
[...] sich Nachbarn im Minutentakt über den Ausbruch von neuen Bränden. Die Nachrichten über ein Erdbeben in China war über Twitter eine Stunde eher bekannt als auf CNN und anderen Mainstreammedien. Außerdem half [...]
September 2nd, 2008 at 1:00 pm
It’s been a few months and people in Chengdu are still struggling. Please help us build a school for the victims: http://www.thepoint.com/campaigns/build-a-school-for-chinas-earthquake-victims
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:49 am
At first I wasn’t sold on Twitter but now I think its the best…….way to go Twitter
September 5th, 2008 at 7:25 am
[...] Some news travels faster than an aftershock [...]
September 10th, 2008 at 11:00 am
[...] con una entrada del blog antes que tu mujer se vaya al trabajo no es una buena idea, 90. Algunas noticias viajan más rápido que un aftershock 91. Las personas no necesitan gestores para organizarse - sólo contactos 92. Cuando pueda [...]
September 11th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
[...] the recent Chinese earthquake, we saw how blogs and tools like Twitter were the only means for citizens to communicate to the outside world past the filter of the [...]
September 18th, 2008 at 1:01 am
[...] be more likely to be ‘there’ when a story breaks - and to understand the [...]
September 22nd, 2008 at 4:30 am
Its interesting to see how Twitter advanced in the mass media…….it tells me that the internet is no longer the alternative approach to the news…….its now main stream.
October 11th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
[...] and efficiently dispersing important information. In fact, the recent earthquake in China was discovered by Tweeters a full half hour before any of the mainstream American news channels or websites picked it [...]
October 24th, 2008 at 3:11 am
[...] recently Twitter was the first source for new on the China earthquake, Robert Scoble started reporting the news well before any of the major news services had picked up the story, Twitter was allowing people [...]
December 9th, 2008 at 11:49 am
[...] has made headlines in some amazing news stories; breaking the news of China’s earthquake and helping a student get out of jail when he was arrested in Egypt for nothing more than taking a [...]
December 15th, 2008 at 4:44 am
[...] talked about how fast Twitter broadcast info about the bridge collapsed last year or the earthquake in China this year. But only when the Mumbai attacks happened few weeks ago, I did have a chance to witness the [...]