When I began writing this post it was heading down a very different path. To be honest, it was going to be another attack on how traditional media these days just can’t keep up with technology when it comes to breaking news stories. This is where Twitter comes in handy. Following both traditional and new media sources gives you a constant feed of when stories are announced.
It was just over 5 days ago now that the beta Wolfram Alpha search engine was launched. Breaking news amongst technology blogs such as Mashable who posted an article announcing and providing a live video stream of the (not so exciting) launch.
It was two days later that BBC Technology released their article on the launch of the new search engine, touting “Wolfram ’search engine’ goes live“. Yes, yes it did, two days ago…
There’s obviously a bigger process a story has to go through before being published somewhere like the BBC, but does this not then lessen the value of the story? This isn’t to say that it isn’t as well written, or that the information isn’t accurate, but is it really news if it’s late? I guess that depends on whether you’re a laggard or early adopter.
The Timeline
What I didn’t expect was to see the announcement of the Palm Pre release date in the US made by BBC Technology before Mashable or TechCrunch (see Twitter feed left). Now I’m not in a position to say the news was broken by BBC Technology, but the article was released by BBC in the UK before appearing on two major American technology news resources.
Maybe traditional media isn’t so far behind after all? For now I think I’ll keep looking at both forms of media for my news.
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May 24th, 2009 at 10:38 pm
I think this is a really interesting topic which opens up a whole debate on online journalism. The way that we consume our news is definitely changing and those traditional media forms will have to change with us. But does the location of the 'man on the ground' have the most impact as to the speed at which we receive the news? Is it no longer about the quality of the article but the speed that counts?
May 25th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
I think this is a really interesting topic which opens up a whole debate on online journalism. The way that we consume our news is definitely changing and those traditional media forms will have to change with us. But does the location of the 'man on the ground' have the most impact as to the speed at which we receive the news? Is it no longer about the quality of the article but the speed that counts?
June 13th, 2009 at 12:51 am
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