The world has become a village thanks to Twitter – News power change
Towers for news
Centuries ago in Europe merchants build towers to lookout for ships to arrive on the river to the harbor. Upon this knowledge they could prepare and act.
The number of people informed was limited.
The communication model was 1 tot 1.
Newspapers
Two centuries ago newspapers could spread the news with a delay of a day.
The number of people informed was relatively large: those who could read and afford a newspaper.
The communication model was from a limited number of sources to a large audience: thus very controllable and censurable.
Telex
A century ago the telex could bring you news instantly to your office.
Having this knowledge they could speculate or arrange before others could.
As telex was expensive, the number of informed people was small, but they had the advantage of immediate information delivery over long distances.
Again the communication model was 1 to 1 as there was a high price to pay for the high speed, which has an economic value.
Telephone
Then telephone could bring the news even quicker as there was no need for coding and decoding the message, decreasing the cost of news delivery and no knowledge to operate (make a call).
The communication model was 1 to 1. Due to the popularity the operating cost decreased significantly.
Broadcasting
First there was radio and later TV, both broadcasting to millions of people instantly.
Thus the competitive advantage of other information carriers was lost: newspapers needed to rethink their business.
Still the number of sources was limited and the distribution of information was still expensive, but was affordable by the large audience and was sponsored by advertising.
The number of sources was rather limited, but audience was massive (millions).
The Internet
The Internet allowed access to a wide range of sources of information and news almost without boundaries.
At first the established news agencies started to distribute their content over the Internet.
A few years into the Internet age as both the cost of access and the cost of publishing on the internet decreased, individual bloggers started to distribute news, information and their views too.
This changed the information from a limited number of sources into multiple sources distributing information to different smaller audiences.
The established news agencies couldn’t compete or control anymore.
Mobile phones
Nowadays everyone in business has a mobile telephone allowing staying updated everywhere.
Thus people can stay up-to-date anywhere in the world with news from anywhere.
Again this is a 1 to 1 communication model with the advantage that both parties don’t need to be in a fixed location.
A smart phone is even better as it can receive the news from a range of selected sources thus not limited to a 1 to 1 communication model.
Mobile Micro Blogging
Mobile micro blogging has changed the distribution of information: anyone can send out a message by texting (sms) or from the Internet to a central aggregator (like Twitter, Plurk or Jaiku), which can be followed by many from anywhere.
This has become a system of multiple sources aggregated and distributed to multiple sources. Operating at a fairly low and affordable price or even free!
That is why this Mobile Micro Blogging is so unique and very disruptive.
Example: the Twitter messages about the terrorist attack in Mumbai
The world has become a village
As around 80% of the world population is covered by mobile networks and about 4 billion mobile phones are in use, the majority of people have access to mobile phones.
Most of these mobile phones (75%) can send an SMS (texting) allowing sending a message to an aggregator.
Hence the world has become a village where anyone can distribute information to the masses at a low cost: the cost of sending a sms (texting).
This fast mobile one-person-to-many broadcast communication has become a problem for companies, leaders and governments as there are no more barriers.
Let’s hope the connection between all people and cultures brings peace and will keep peace in the world as it will be very difficult to keep anything secret or not being broadcasted.
Everybody can own and know the news and it is no longer a priviledge for a selective group of people.
The power of news has changed definitely.
Will you be able to use it for your business?
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