In real-time, journalists’ tweets contribute to a ‘raw draft’ of history | Poynter.

In real-time, journalists’ tweets contribute to a ‘raw draft’ of history | Poynter.:


I was actually thinking about this exact thing the other day... Earlier this year my family started clearing out closets and my parents pulled out boxes of letters from friends and family, old calendars, photos and so on—a physical paper record of their communications and life before the internet. My generation doesn't have that they pointed out. You don't have any of this because it's all online now. This is true.

While I have never really had any serious correspondence with anyone via mail—if I have to send a letter or package I have to double check a Wiki to make sure I don't mess it up—I do have a record.

In coming weeks Facebook is updating the Profile page and turning it into something they call "Timelines." "The story of your life," as Mark Zuckerburg said in his Keynote presentation at F8.

I don't have boxes of letters. I have my entire Facebook page, my blog, my archived AIM and Skype conversations, and my twitter feed. All of which give me a day to day view of what was going on in my life. I can go back to December 5th, 2006 and see how I was feeling that day, what I was reading, who I was talking to and whatever other information I felt like posting at the time. Admittedly it's not nearly as important as Carvin's archived twitter feed.

This, I guess, is sort of creepy in its specificity. But it's reassuring to know that their is a record that's slowly been accumulating over time and that their will be something specific I can look at to remember the good old days.