Is the "Real-Time Web" coming of age during the Iranian election protest?!
[June 15, 2009]
If you're not seeing it, you're not paying attention (to the right channels).
Over the past few days a storm of political unrest has been brewing in Iran, backlash questioning the legitimacy of the outcome of the Iranian election. Another controversy has been emerging online.
Upset about CNN's lack of immediate coverage of the election protest in Iran, many twitter users are calling the 24-hour cable network out for a major fail (for more: 1, 2, 3). #CNNFail emerged by an implied community of twitterers who've been covering the story both on the ground from within Iran and from the comfort of their computer chairs around the world. While this brings questions of influence and discord between mainstream and social media, (a major topic in my dissertation) something else struck me about what's been going on the last few days.
The real-time-web is an emerging topic in the online world today, a phenomenon whose potentiality and staying power are a Big (yes, with a capital B) "?". Right now you can choose your info source about the unrest: Mainstream media or Social media. And, no, not the social media we've known the last few years but a new stage of social media: the real time web (a topic so new at 11am PST this morning I couldn't find Wikipedia page on it... so I decided to start one).
There are, of course posts on the twitterverse on the topic. But twitter provides a narrow, text-based 1-medium knowledge-stream. There are also videos emerging on YouTube, blog posts, photos actively updated by protesters in the streets of Iran on Twitpic, etc, etc. There is a wealth of rich, multimedia news unlike anything we've ever before seen covering a live event of this historical magnitude. But how do we make sense of all this info as it races by us? Real time web search engines are currently offering the best ways for tracking this amalgamation of info streaming in, the likes of which traditional news cannot compete with.
To understand this mess of data, real time web engines pool from various sources such as micro-blogs, photos, blogs, etc., delivering a multimedia mosaic of what's important right now.
Some insightful examples are:
- Twazzup (by far the best from what I can find)
- Scoopler
- SocialMention
- OneRiot (webstream)
- Oneriot (videostream)
So as you monitor the situation on the ground as it is happening, turning off and browsing away from the CNN's of the world and going in search of a way to follow what's going on in Iran in the social media age, ponder this question: Is the situation in Iran proving the value and potential of the real-time web? It seems to me historical events, our desire for a wealth of info right now about these events, and the inability of the mainstream media to fulfill those needs and social media have created an opportunity for the real time web to be thrust into a position to prove its worth. This could be a turning point for Iran, the world and for the real time web. For the RealWeb, it will come down to the ability of the various real time web searches to deliver.
Thoughts?
What other real time web tools are you using?
p.s., In no way to I mean to minimize the importance of what is occurring in Iran nor was it my attempt to discuss any controversy surrounding the issue. What is happening is profoundly important. There are many strong feelings and there is violence and human rights violations undoubtedly occurring. I am not a political commentator and I feel it is best to leave those discussions to those who are more informed than I am on these matters and to those spaces. I am simply attempting to discuss the intersection between history, the role of new media in struggle for social change, and news media.
(photo by blr85 from TwitPic)
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