Those of us involved in the world wide interwebs are always trying to find the next big 'thing', the emerging trend that will both erase previous technologies/trends and make future generations think, "Wow...what did you do before you had [X]?" Seeing what's happening with the recent Iranian "elections", and the inability for traditional news organizations to penetrate the government-imposed media silence, it makes me wonder what the future holds for these traditional channels and, by extension, internet news.
When CNN is relying on iReporters and tweets 'round the clock, something must be wrong. Either it's a slow news day, or they can't get to a story, or the story doesn't make it to the national level, or, like a lot of big companies, they still haven't figured out how to really harness social networking for their business. Or, worse yet, maybe the story wasn't really there to begin with.
In this instance, they simply can't get to a story. But it's truly fascinating how Twitter and other sites have become the proxy for traditional news during this amazing time in Iranian history, and it's even better because there really is little fear of a bias or angle. And it certainly isn't able to be spun by the punditocrazy, at least not until well after it's been read by millions. So the question is, is this the beginning of the end of news as we currently know it? Many would argue we already passed that toll long ago. But, in terms of delivery systems, are we going to be seeing more 'Community News Organizations' that are all real-time, first-person, bias-free, web-based reporting? Perhaps just news aggregators that compile feeds from the CNO's, and no more corporate news organizations? Cloud computing, cheap hosting, video phones (with editing capability), faster 3G (and soon 4G) speeds...it all seems to culminate in the continual downfall of MSM, who will have to rely more and more on entertainment, and leave the news reporting to the people who are actually there on the scene. What do you guys think?