UAE | General
Twitter spreads news of Dubai building collapse around the world
As news of the building collapse in Deira broke, thousands of people were following the latest developments on micro-blogging site Twitter.
- By Adam Flinter, hub editor
- Published: 19:40 August 16, 2009
- Image Credit: Twitter
- Updates and photos from Mohammed Ali Jamadar (or @ MaliZomg) also made their way to local and international media and even found their way onto the screens of the UK’s Sky News (via gulfnews.com)
Dubai: As news of the building collapse in Deira broke, thousands of people were following the latest developments on micro-blogging site Twitter.
Just one man tweeting and taking pictures from the scene alerted hundreds of Dubai residents to the accident. The re-tweets by other twitter users passing the news on made sure the incident was followed by thousands.
Updates and photos from Mohammed Ali Jamadar (or @ MaliZomg) also made their way to local and international media and even found their way onto the screens of the UK's Sky News (via gulfnews.com)
The 21-year-old student admitted he had been taken by surprise by the fuss his tweeting had caused, saying: ““I live nearby so I parked my car, walked to the site and started clicking.
“I later started tweeting, spoke to a couple of people and let everyone know what was happening.''
But Mohammad, who has been tweeting heavily since December 2008 and has around 840 followers, said it wasn't until a friend called him that he realized how many people were hanging onto his real-time updates.
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“I was not entirely aware of how my tweets were spreading across the world,'' he told Gulf News.
“About half way through I got a call from a friend who told me what was happening. I would think this was cool if it hadn't been such a potential tragedy.''
But with an increasing number of the public sending out live updates from all kinds of news events, he left no doubt as to his view on the importance of the social media.
He said: “Twitter is real time information. Whoever was following me at the time was also lucky enough to be there with me at the scene.''
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