Then –
A phone call alerted you to turn on the television. You searched the very limited channels for a man at a desk with a microphone. Then, you passively watched, waited and wondered.

Now –
Twitter is the CB radio background noise of what’s happening in the world. It’s loud. It’s fluffy. It’s angry. It’s full of static. It has an emotional rhythm that reacts instantly when something, somewhere, slips off the track. As the hive mind spreads the alarm, everyone reaches out to other sources to create an instant analysis of the anomaly. I use Tumblr to see instant images of events near and far.

Twitter is a snarky party with a horde of fans surrounding every celebrity and door-to-door salesmen constantly trying to get your attention. Twitter is also a 140 character pulse monitor.