Oh dear, I’m trending on Twitter – does it mean I’m dead?

Where do you go to find out the latest news? The BBC, Sky News, maybe even Teletext if you're a bit old school? Or do you go to Twitter, like an increasing number of us do on a daily basis?

The rise of Twitter has been quite extraordinary. From very humble beginnings back in 2006 with just a handful of users, the micro-blogging site now boasts over 300 million users worldwide with 300 million tweets posted each day. The majority of tweets are, of course, little more than inane gossip and speculation, but what I’m really interested in is the way that people are now using the site as a news aggregator.

Just recently an example of this was evident in a conversation in my office. One of my colleagues decided to tell a joke relating to a very well known football manager, the opening line being that he'd been arrested. Before he could even finish his sentence, he was shot down with an 'of course he hasn’t, it’s not on Twitter'. Who'd be a comedian eh?

On a more serious note, Twitter has taken off in a way that I'm sure its founders could only have dreamt about. It is used extensively by the BBC News team (with over 4 million followers), Sky (441,069), Reuters and many other news agencies and newspapers from around the world, giving it a kind of gravitas that many other social networks strive towards, but have not yet gained. On more than one occasion, the BBC has broken news on Twitter before it has been posted to its own website.

Twitter is where many people found out about the death of Steve Jobs (with some people not missing the irony of the fact that they had found out about his passing on a device that he helped to create with the Twitter for iPhone/iPad/iPod app).

Not only is Twitter is a good place to find out the news, it's also making it. You couldn't fail to miss the headlines in the UK last week with Diane Abbott's 'divide and rule' tweet or Ed Miliband's typo when tweeting about Bob Holness. It does make me wonder if this prompted more people to go and investigate Twitter to see if they're missing out. There was also the unprecedented coverage of the 'superinjunction' which Twitter seemed to slip through the net. Crass as it may sound to be interested in the personal life of a particular Premier League footballer, a mere 75,000 users cared enough to tweet his name.

But is Social Media in general a force for good? During last year's Japanese earthquake, for some people without phone lines, Twitter was their only connection with the outside world. Not only did they use it to tell friends and relatives they were ok, but also to keep the rest of the world updated with what was going on. It can be a real eye opener.

Twitter and Facebook have been credited with assisting in the Arab Spring revolutions. With hashtags on Twitter and Groups on Facebook, you can bring groups of people together with a common theme. A couple in Egypt were so taken with Facebook that they even named their daughter after it!! On a much smaller scale, Twitter in particular helped with the clean up of London's streets after last summer's riots.

It’s a good place to share information. We have our own group Twitter account (@HarveyNashGroup, if you're asking) where we post all our news and views. Many companies are doing the same thing, from Cadbury to Virgin Media. They feel it's a great way to keep in touch with their customers, and to tell people what's really going on behind their brand. Even David Cameron and Boris Johnson have Twitter accounts, as well as the Met Police.

From personal experience, I'm aware of a lot more people joining Twitter not necessarily to tell the world what they've had for breakfast, but to just quietly follow a variety of different people, companies and organisations. It seems that it's more than just a 'Facebook status update' site, you can find out some genuinely interesting things. You can keep up to date with share prices whilst finding out who is going to be evicted from Celebrity Big Brother, all in one place and with very little effort.

Where will all this end? Who knows! One thing's for sure, we'll probably all find out on Twitter first...

Michelle Smith,
Harvey Nash