The Politically Savvy, Tweeters? You Betcha!

As a recent convert to the world of Twitter, I have quickly fallen in to the hypnotizing abyss of friends' updates and, yes, I admit, a bit of the celebrity gossip (come on, you know you couldn't resist checking in on John Mayer). Something that I wasn't prepared for and pleasantly suprised by was the other, more real world, side of Twitter. Political snippets and real time news are prominent on the site. To be quite honest, it's my new favorite way to digest world current events.

The devastating earthquake that struck central Italy just days ago has proven Twitter's legitimacy in my eyes. Not only could I quickly access the site and see the updates, but when time allowed I just clicked on links that took me to more detailed articles on the web.

One story that we are all familiar with is the Hudson River plane crash. After the fact we all learned the story of the amazingly adept and heroic pilot and stories of the people on board. As a nation we were all taken by this story. What we all were amazed by was how fast the news and updates spread, thanks in part to Twitter. People on the ground witnessing the events were tweeting like crazy and this allowed us all to vicariously bear witness. What an amazing tool to bring us all together!

I still really enjoy getting my daily news with the real, not so live, newspaper (remember those things?) over a piping hot cup of coffee. But some very exciting things are happening in our world and to stay up to the minute, tweeting is the way. We were all there for the inauguration...that incredibly inspiring and historical day, even the president himself sent a tweet out, a little wink, if you will, at the country that elected him. To be a part of history, the second it is happening is a mind boggling and awesome part of age we live in.

Twitter is a relatively new concept to me as it is for a lot of political junkies. I highly recommend jumping in if you have any interest. You can find some fantasic Twitter resources on TeachStreet including some great articles and teachers to tell you the tricks of the trade!! If you know all there is to know, share your expertise here.

One rockstar tweeter of the Seattle TeachStreet community, Joseph Sunga, has several Twitter classes for those curious beginner and intermediate tweeters!