#iranelection

Twitter has arrived.

The VT incident was a glimpse, but right now in Iran, students and tech savvy reformists alike are using Twitter as the tool of choice for instant and first-person communique coming out of Tehran and the tumultuous protests going on right now.

I can't think of another situation where one was able, in real time, to access the thoughts, sights and messages of so many people concerning one event.

Can you imagine if this was possible during 9/11? People would be tweeting their location in buildings. Rescue services would be checking it for information. Pictures would instantly have been sent to the outside world.

This marks a pretty powerful point for social media, with the U.S. State Dept. even admitting it pressed Twitter to hold off on a scheduled maintenance to allow Iranians to continue using the site as a point of reference on source of information.

Ingenuity has allowed many Iranians to continue using the site through proxy servers, getting around the general bans the government has levied against cell phones, text messages, email, facebook, blogs and even twitter itself.

Yes, 90% of the comments I receive in twitter are asinine. But when something like this happens, the potential of not just the internet, by social networking is plain to see.

If McLuhan's global village was a tribalized network of communities that redefined individualism, social media has perhaps ushered in a evolved state of the village -- one that modifies what we deem individual but more importantly, what we consider to be our tribe.

I am fascinated by what's going on in Tehran. The political repercussions of the reformist backlash cannot be understated -- the potential for change is most definitely in the air.

But perversely, I am even more fascinated by what's going on on Twitter.

As important as the tool has become, I truly believe at the end of this, the true winner will be the mainstream media. It may not look like it now, because compared to Tweets, the 6pm news is painfully outdated and slow to react to breaking events. But the vetting process of true journalism cannot be undervalued.

It's great to get breaking news from the mob. But the wall of noise eventually gives way to deeper questions -- who can you trust? what information is accurate?

Unlike a lot of others, who believe social networking is "the new journalism," I think that's simply not true. Journalism will always be sharing of stories in an accurate, timely fashion.

Twitter is but another tool. But perhaps one of the biggest we've seen in a generation.