Well, I told myself I was going to post everyday and so far I'm not off to a very good start. Hopefully I will be able to make it up to you now. Since my post Tuesday, inspired by the announcement of the iPhone4S, you all know that Steve Jobs has died.
I found out last night at about 8p.m. as I was leaving one meeting and heading to another. A girl ran through the hall and screamed at her nearby friend, "Steve Jobs is dead!" My first reaction was to check Twitter. I saw
a tweet from NPR News saying, "Apple Visionary Steve Jobs Dies At 56 http://n.pr/pcnRMC" and I knew it was true, a legend had left us.
I looked back later to discover 16 tweets on my newsfeed proceeded the NPR post that informed me of Jobs' death all within minutes of each other. Man, "news travels fast" is an understatement.
News travels SO fast that by the time I got home from my meetings and saw my roommates, no one even needed to mention Jobs' death. It was safe to assume that after an hour of the breaking news all five of us knew. The only thing that was said was, "That's really sad about Steve Jobs." the response among us all was, "Yeah." It blows my mind that after ONE HOUR it's old news. Even though newspapers still ran headlines this morning about his legacy and articles are still being written about his life, everyone knows that he is dead.
As I am writing this I decided to text my friends and family to find out how they heard the news. Here's how they responded:
Facebook - 4
Twitter - 1
Word of Mouth - 6
Email - 1
Gizmodo.com - 1
CNN.com - 1
Buzz on the trading floor - 1 (this would be my brother...)
Text message - 1
TV - 2
Radio - 1
Who's that? - 1 (I thought he was being sarcastic but it turns out I am friends with someone who didn't know who Steve Jobs was. I got a text a few minutes later that said the Apple guy? Wow.)
I was surprised to see that word of mouth was the way most people heard the news. In these situations, most of the people were sitting next to someone who found out though a website or twitter. We are not only news sources for each other on Facebook and Twitter but just by interacting with others. We want to be the first to know and the first to tell others, it is a race for information.
With Twitter, Facebook, online news, and a constantly communicating society we don't have to walk to the end of our driveway and pick up the paper to know that Steve Jobs has died. It takes less than an hour for everyone to assume that everyone else knows what is going on. In this world, if the news is big enough, it will find us.
I looked back later to discover 16 tweets on my newsfeed proceeded the NPR post that informed me of Jobs' death all within minutes of each other. Man, "news travels fast" is an understatement.
News travels SO fast that by the time I got home from my meetings and saw my roommates, no one even needed to mention Jobs' death. It was safe to assume that after an hour of the breaking news all five of us knew. The only thing that was said was, "That's really sad about Steve Jobs." the response among us all was, "Yeah." It blows my mind that after ONE HOUR it's old news. Even though newspapers still ran headlines this morning about his legacy and articles are still being written about his life, everyone knows that he is dead.
As I am writing this I decided to text my friends and family to find out how they heard the news. Here's how they responded:
Facebook - 4
Twitter - 1
Word of Mouth - 6
Email - 1
Gizmodo.com - 1
CNN.com - 1
Buzz on the trading floor - 1 (this would be my brother...)
Text message - 1
TV - 2
Radio - 1
Who's that? - 1 (I thought he was being sarcastic but it turns out I am friends with someone who didn't know who Steve Jobs was. I got a text a few minutes later that said the Apple guy? Wow.)
I was surprised to see that word of mouth was the way most people heard the news. In these situations, most of the people were sitting next to someone who found out though a website or twitter. We are not only news sources for each other on Facebook and Twitter but just by interacting with others. We want to be the first to know and the first to tell others, it is a race for information.
With Twitter, Facebook, online news, and a constantly communicating society we don't have to walk to the end of our driveway and pick up the paper to know that Steve Jobs has died. It takes less than an hour for everyone to assume that everyone else knows what is going on. In this world, if the news is big enough, it will find us.
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