Real time. That is the gift of social media. I remember being so incredibly glad of the connectivity provided by Twitter during our own evacuation during Hurricane Gustav. Now as the situation in Mumbai explodes across the Internet my dear friend Maitri (@Maitri on Twitter) has rallied together the prime social media based resources for connecting to the situation.
Via VatulBlog:
As usual, mainstream media is useless and slow in its updates. I’ve been following the #mumbai Twitter feed and Mahalo is doing a great job rounding up all the news. Blogger Vinu is on the scene and is uploading many of his pictures to Flickr. Gauravonomics has an excellent post up about the power of real-time citizen journalism during these attacks; he has a more extensive set of links. Here is a Google map of Mumbai attack locations.
Twitter user yelvington just said, “Fascinating. CNN is filling airtime; #mumbai channel is full of tidbits posted by witnesses.” Another chided India’s NDTV for showing footage from one part of the city and referring to it as another (New Orleanians, remember when FOXCNNMSNBC did this during Katrina and Gustav? It’s not just us.)
This is a substantive and organic change, disaster and war will no longer have the distance they once did. It will take time for that distance to evaporate, but it is doing so at a far greater rate than most realize.
Keep the people of Mumbai in your prayers. Flying bullets can really screw up your day….
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