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Tim Russert dead, so says Twitter

June 13, 2008 by 6 Comments

Tim Russert is dead at 58 from an apparent heart attack. And I found out via Twitter.

Before it was on CNN. Before it was on the New York Times. Before I could Google it anywhere, Tim Russert’s death was reported on Twitter.

This is the power of word-of-mouth.

If you page back in the Summize logs, you can see how it started. You can see the very first mention. Then you can see how it spread from friend to friend, network to network. Re-tweets. Condolences. RIPs.

When Twitter works, it really works. It’s more powerful than any centralized media source. It unites us as individuals. It defines the present tense.

My friend Tony Bacigalupo said it best:

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About

Whitney Hess is a coach and writer helping product teams and senior leaders make better decisions through the principles of user experience. She believes empathy builds empires.

Follow @whitneyhess

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  • Pingback: Tim Russert « GingerSnaps

  • http://www.doctype.cx AK

    i dont know that i agree with tony – where was russert before the war?

  • http://www.velveteenmind.com Velveteen Mind – Megan

    I found out via Twitter, as well. As it works out, I end up getting most of the news via Twitter while I’m going about my usual routine. The news comes to me through the people that I follow.

    Fascinating.

  • http://www.theimagelab.com jen b

    I actually found out in the car driving. MPR broke in to communicate the news. The odd thing though, it had a twitter like feeling to it when it happened. I actually thought to myself, if i were at my computer, I’d have found out about this on twitter but since I’m driving, I had a twitter moment in the car.

  • http://hud.tumblr.com Hudson

    …and i heard it from your tweet. it’s very sad news and what’s interesting to me on the tech side of things is that I’m glad I heard it via “word of mouth,” not from big media. i would have seen it on NYTimes a few minutes later, but with Twitter it’s more personal, being literally person to person, and somehow more comforting being able to share it that way.

    also, Summize breaks after page 100 of Tim Russert results, which is nowhere near the first tweet. I think developers often underestimate the potential use/depth of their infrastructure, cf: http://is.gd/x05

  • http://www.michaelgalpert.com michael galpert

    I don’t read/watch the news anymore. I just follow twitter.