Advertisement

Twitter tool that breaks news in real-time now open in US

Twitter's more than just a way to update anyone who cares to listen on what you're doing. Not only can you ask it life's nagging/profound questions, you can use it to buy yourself a snood, if you wish. But, there are more serious tasks that Twitter's constant stream of mini-missives can assist with -- such as breaking news. Back in January, we heard about Dataminr for News -- a service for journalists that identifies stories as they break on Twitter. Now, it's ready for prime time. Initially, CNN had been trialling the tool, but that pool of newsrooms has since extended to the BBC, The Weather Channel, USA Today and beyond. Finally it's open to any news room that wants to harness the 500,000,000 public Tweets per day that Dataminr claims it parses to distill into news. Dataminr for News is available through Tweetdeck integration, and a dedicated mobile app, and not only highlights stories, but adds context and estimated locations to events as more information flows in. Now your social media activism might have a quicker route to the media's gaze.