Ted Roden

I’ve seen the future of the news

I hear a lot of talk about how we’ll consume the news in the future. People say, if it’s important it will find me. While monitoring twitter, facebook, tumblr and other social networks, the big news will just rise to the top and you’ll be certain to know the big stories. I personally know several people who tell me this is pretty much the only way they find news these days.

So while I’ve been in Texas for the past week, with my only lifeline to the Internet via my iPhone, I’ve made it a point to stay away from news sites. I’ve only read twitter and tumblr. I’d like to say that facebook played a part, but I honestly don’t think I’ve checked it the entire time.

Here are my results. I’ve listed three stories below, these aren’t just the top three stories, these are the only three that I can remember seeing while staying away from both mainstream news and newsy blogs.

1. Someone from the Washington Post claimed Gawker ripped him off by posting all of the good bits of his story with minimal credit/linkage. Most people felt like he just didn’t get it. Then some twitter user named nicknotned said “bloggers should chill” and everybody seemed to respect his wishes. Nobody seemed to care what the original article was about.
2. A cultural event of epic proportions happened. This was a colossal event. I saw several weather reports, pictures of bands and pictures of crowds. I only gathered this much of the setlists: Jay-Z opened with No Sleep ‘Til Brooklyn. Also, nobody on the west coast cared about it.
3. Eric Schmidt left the board of Apple. Just by reading twitter, I wasn’t able to figure out why this was a big deal, but I was able to figure out that EVERYONE saw this coming. I’m pretty sure the majority of the tweets or started with the word DUH.

Story of honorable mention: Serendipity is dead on the web, nobody on the internet agrees.

So… what did I miss? Because I won’t have a reliable Internet connection for another 24 hours, you’ll have to tell me via twitter.