New News

Arguing over television network biases is so 1990's. Everyone knows that conservatives worship Fox News and liberals love CNN and MSNBC. Because in truth, one station tells nothing but the truth while all of the others feed their audiences cold lies. With the growth of social media, the argument has now changed from television network biases to who can break stories quicker (consumer's have really ditched the mental question of "is this biased?")-- Twitter, especially.  People's Twitter feeds provide them with news just as much, if not more than TV sources. This is because of the ease of access and the connectivity of people on social media. Twitter understands this shift in learning and they have just introduced a new tab on the platform titled "Moments."

The goal of every Twitter user is what? Going viral, of course. Breaking "new news" is not something reserved for veteran reporters anymore. Instead, it is open to anyone with a social media account. Concerns over network bias are long gone and the concern now is all about SPEED. No longer would we call the news station about a car crash or a dangerous situation. We just grab our phones and start capturing and tweeting. This is the whole thought behind Twitter's Moments: events happen, people react by tweeting/ filming, and then Twitter groups all of these people's posts together and we have a fully matured news story with thousands of people interacting. Old school conventional news would say, "Let's create a big story and HOPE that we get thousands of people interacting."

Moments is all about quickness and simplicity. No longer do we have to sort through hashtags, follow certain users, and/or look up news outlets. No, everything we need to understand about the world's biggest stories at any time is under one single tab. The easiness of Moments is very intentional, as Twitter is trying to stay relevant by making it easier for casual users to get connected and hooked to Twitter. With a large amount of people over the age of fifty joining Twitter every day, Moments makes a lot of sense and requires very little from users.

A lot of people smarter than myself are claiming that Twitter is dead or it is nearly dead. With the looks of their current stock prices, it seems that they may be correct. Is it possible that Moments could save Twitter? Is it possible that a tech-driven company simply collecting and grouping other people's media could save itself from death? I guess only time will tell; Twitter's final Moment may be of Twitter's final moment.