joshsternberg:

The telegraph became mainstream in the 1830s thanks to Samuel Morse and immediately changed society. The communications technology broke space and time; people no longer waited months for messages to be transmitted. The beginnings of a democratized mass media took place as the telegraph enabled newswires to exist, transmitting information instantaneously across the world. Can Twitter, the modern telegraph, upend newswires?

Traditional newswires, like the Associated Press or Reuters, provide publishing partners with short bursts of information, as well as intensive reporting where outlets are under-sourced or may not even have staff. Newswire content has long filled the gaps for newspapers. But with the advent of the 140-character social network, newswires find themselves, like many other traditional models, disrupted by the Internet, looking down the barrel of a gun. The choices seem obvious. Either adapt to the speed of real-time communication and use Twitter as a complementary tool to help with reporting or face irrelevancy as Twitter and other social networks tap into the power of the ultimate free resource, people with an Internet connection and desire to share what they see.

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We have a tiny little thought in this. On a side note, we were playing with Prismatic today and it’s pretty good at combining philosophies on news wires and Twitter accounts.