more from the maximum city: social media comes of age

Mumbai Attack Coverage demonstrates (good and bad) maturation point of social media - ZDNet.com

"Sadly, the people writing about how cool it is that people are live tweeting the events in Mumbai are missing a huge point. What’s happening now — and what is happening in Mumbai — is bigger than all of us. It’s bigger than communicating via Twitter. It’s bigger than just reading blogs. This is where social media grows up.

Social media is providing the ability to report and take in unfiltered news in a more direct way than ever before possible and we’re doing it on a mass scale. It’s no longer just a toy for early adopters and Internet nerds; it’s taking its place as an influencer far beyond technology. There is, however, a downside: there’s very little way to know what is true and what is rumor. As fellow ZDNet-er Michael Krigsman said to me the night, “we’re trading off potential accuracy for immediacy.”

He’s right. On one hand, social media shows the wisdom of crowds while at the same time demonstrates the reactionary failures of the crowd."

Social media is ready for prime time. This is it: the game is on, we have arrived. Get on the bus now. We're going to be handling, processing, and watching horrific events like the Mumbai attacks in very different ways from here on out. This is not just for geeks and weirdos and the highly educated: this is for everyone.







'Terrorists had plan to blow up Taj' - The Times of India

"NEW DELHI: Times Now reports suggest that terrorist who was caught alive had confessed to investigating agencies that they had a plan to blow up
the Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai.

The terrorists had enough explosives to blow up the Taj hotel.

Sources have told the TV channel that they wanted to reduce the life-size building of Taj hotel to rubble. They also believed to have told about their plan to replicate a ‘JW Marriot’, happened at Islamabad, to the Mumbai hotel.

In a sense to destroy the symbol of financial strength of the country and send shock-waves all across the globe, the terrorists wanted to do a 9/11 in India. "

Symbolism is everything in these overt terror attacks. Again, I can't help drawing the 9/11 connection: that too was a primarily symbolic attack, intended to hit the USA right where it lived. Of course, I doubt the terrorists motivation in this situation was to cut India "down to size" somehow - we just don't know yet. I'm damn well waiting.

AFP: Terror, Disbelief, Shock: Witnesses tell of Mumbai horror

"South African security guard Faisul Nagel was having dinner with colleagues at a Taj restaurant when the assault began. They barricaded the restaurant and moved everyone into the kitchen.

"We basically put the lights off in the restaurant just to create an element of surprise. And we armed ourselves with kitchen knives and meat cleavers," he told AFP by phone.

They ended up helping around 120 people escape -- including a 90-year-old woman who had to be carried in her chair down 25 flights of stairs.

When guests finally escaped, they could hardly believe their eyes.

"Outside in the foyer of this beautiful hotel, (it) was just like in a fog with all the smoke," retired judge Paul Guest told Australian radio. "There was blood all over the floor and bits of bodies."



Taxi Meant To Blow Up Domestic Airport - India Today

"Shortly before the terrorists moved into their targets in South Mumbai, a black and yellow taxi, with three passengers and enough ammunition to bring down a dome, sped in the direction of the airport. Instead of taking a slip road that would have taken the passengers straight to the airport, the driver took the flyover which bypassed the airport, only to get stuck at a red light.

At rush hour, the lights stayed red for long, at which the passengers berated the driver and asked him to cut the traffic lights. The driver moved on, but the wait turned out to be a minute or two too long. The car exploded. All that was found was a severed head and parts of three human legs. Had the terrorists' plans of coinciding a blast at the airport with the attacks on the Taj and Oberoi hotels succeeded, the death toll of 26/11 would have been much bigger than it already is. "

It's always horrifying to tease out the threads of a disaster like this one and determine where things could have gone much much worse. I do think this is one case where Mumbai's horrible nightmare clusterfuck traffic came in VERY VERY HANDY.

Mumbai Attack Coverage demonstrates (good and bad) maturation point of social media - ZDNet.com

"Sadly, the people writing about how cool it is that people are live tweeting the events in Mumbai are missing a huge point. What’s happening now — and what is happening in Mumbai — is bigger than all of us. It’s bigger than communicating via Twitter. It’s bigger than just reading blogs. This is where social media grows up.

Social media is providing the ability to report and take in unfiltered news in a more direct way than ever before possible and we’re doing it on a mass scale. It’s no longer just a toy for early adopters and Internet nerds; it’s taking its place as an influencer far beyond technology. There is, however, a downside: there’s very little way to know what is true and what is rumor. As fellow ZDNet-er Michael Krigsman said to me the night, “we’re trading off potential accuracy for immediacy.”

He’s right. On one hand, social media shows the wisdom of crowds while at the same time demonstrates the reactionary failures of the crowd."

Social media is ready for prime time. This is it: the game is on, we have arrived. Get on the bus now. We're going to be handling, processing, and watching horrific events like the Mumbai attacks in very different ways from here on out. This is not just for geeks and weirdos and the highly educated: this is for everyone.