Has Twitter peaked as a news source?

Twitter made headlines even on the airwaves last week as it poured out instant updates on the Mumbai terrorist attacks, leading CNN to say that the events would be as famous as a landmark for social media as for terrorism. But they probably spoke too soon, and maybe a bit disrespectfully, too. Twitter repeatedly broke the story in two ways - i.e. not just new, but ‘unusable’, as the flurry of updates turned into a whirlwind. So not just Twitter’s finest hour, but perhaps the one where, following its big successes in keeping track of Apple expos and presidential campaigns, its limitations became clear.

It will be interesting to see where this goes next. It is clear that Twitter is now very much a part of life, and it seems to be even clearer that the need for such a service, though strongly felt, is in some ways not being met. Putting these facts together, perhaps the market is open to a new brand of Twitter, aimed particularly at journalists or those in the news community, but open to others, too, provided they adhere to tagging rules, for example. It’s also clear that a good service of this kind is worth paying for if you are a news professional - so time for a really creative business model…