Is there even any doubt anymore that Twitter is here to stay?  It has become a key form of communication and authoritative content publishing and sharing, and events from the first month of 2010 only further solidify Twitter’s place as a vital tool of the 21st century.

The tragic earthquakes in Haiti have been a top subject on Twitter since the first tremor struck earlier this month and this week Twitter went down when a second earthquake hit and the site became flooded with traffic and tweets.  Twitter became a vital source for sharing breaking news, helping loved ones find each other, sharing information about donating money to help Haitian citizens, and more.  It’s truly amazing how Twitter has helped to shrink the world, and it’s hard to believe that the tool has only been around for a few years.

Even reporters are using Twitter to replace or supplement their work.  In a blog post published earlier this week on Web Ink Now, David Meerman Scott wrote about his trip to a senate rally where President Obama spoke.  David sat in the press area during the event and took a video (shown below) of a few of the many reporters he saw using Twitter to communicate news throughout the event.  He even spoke with a reporter from the Washington Times who shared her story saying she uses TweetDeck to keep track of her thoughts during events.  You can read more about David’s experience on his Web Ink Now blog.

So really, is there even any doubt anymore that Twitter is here to stay?  More importantly, is there any doubt that it now holds an important place as a vital source for communication, news, and authoritative content?

Did you know Newstex syndicates authoritative Twitter content?  If you’re a publisher, you can learn more about syndicating your Twitter content here, and if you’re a distributor, you can learn more about Twitter content syndication through Newstex here.

2009 was the year of Twitter.  From news spreading faster and wider than ever before to the sharing of authoritative content and all the fun and entertainment that the tool brought to people around the world, Twitter grew bigger than anyone could have imagined.  Earlier this week, I wrote about Twitter’s explosive growth in 2009, and today I want to follow up by writing about the top Twitter trends in 2009.

According to the Twitter blog, the top Twitter trends of 2009 covered a wide variety of topics from news to entertainment, sports to technology, and more.  Most of the top news-related Twitter trends in 2009 were related to politics and a wide variety of Twitter users joined those conversations.  What I found particularly interesting in the list of the top 2009 Twitter trends is the inclusion of some topics that were most certainly discussed by Twitter users who publish authoritative content.

Consider the top 10 news Twitter trends in 2009 listed below:

1. #iranelection
2. Swine Flu
3. Gaza
4. Iran
5. Tehran
6. #swineflu
7. AIG
8. #uksnow
9. Earth Hour
10. #inaug09

It’s interesting to imagine what will dominate the Twitter conversations of 2010.  Will more and more authoritative conversations occur on Twitter in 2010 than 2009?  I think it’s safe to assume that will be the case, and Newstex will continue to syndicate more and more of that authoritative Twitter content in 2010!

Happy New Year from the entire Newstex team!

2009 was the year of Twitter.  According to a recent article on TimesOnline, written by Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, the site saw unprecendented growth and influence during the last year of the first decade of the 21st century.  Who would have thought just a decade ago that we’d be here today, in a world where information travels faster than James Bond could have predicted, thanks in part to Twitter?

As an example, Stone writes about the aftermath of the Iran election of 2009 and the integral part Twitter played in allowing people to communicate within and across borders — something that couldn’t have been done just a few years ago — when he writes about a planned maintenance for Twitter.com that was scheduled to happen on June 15, just after the Iran election.  A note was added to Twitter.com that morning warning users that the site would not be available while a system upgrade occurred.  Within minutes, the reach and influence of Twitter became clear.  As Stone writes:

“Immediately, we began to see a reaction in the form of tweets.  Then came the emails.  Then came the phone calls.  Even the US State Department contacted us.  The message was loud and clear: Twitter cannot rest while there is unrest in Iran.”

Despite the fact that the planned maintenance was critical, the team behind Twitter realized that the level of communication the site provided during a critical moment in history was more important than the risk.  The scheduled maintenance was delayed, and the world learned more about what was happening in Iran during the days following the Iran election of 2009 through Twitter than traditional media could possibly provide.

Did history change that day?  It’s hard to say, but the tables have certainly turned.

Stone also shares that in 2010, Twitter will support a billion search queries per day and will deliver several billion tweets per hour to people across the globe.  Considering Twitter went live in 2007, those are amazing statistics.

While Stone writes about 2009 saying, “the year is a blur, but that one summer morning remains fixed in my memory because it is a powerful reminder of why we find it meaningful to develop technology,” it makes me think in a slightly different direction.  It makes me think how powerful new media has become and the tools of new media, backed by authoritative content publishers, just might change the world.

You can read Biz Stone’s complete article on TimesOnline here.

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