I realize not everyone is as impressed with or interested in the crazy extent to which social media and web interactivity now respond to breaking news like some sort of super dynamic and fast-moving biosystem, but this morning I've just been fascinated by a number of examples of it this as relating to the bin Laden raid. So, some musings:
First, this Pakistani guy (@ReallyVirtual) basically live-tweeted the entire raid as it happened, without knowing what it was, from somewhere nearby enough to hear it go down - and became an almost instantaneous celebrity. This is a compilation somebody made of his "coverage": http://chirpstory.com/li/1288 (or just check out his actual twitter feed: http://twitter.com/#!/ReallyVirtual ) After tweeting for like 16 hours straight (beginning at 1am his time!) and fielding sudden massive requests for interviews and such, his last tweet a few hours ago was "Bin Laden is dead. I didn't kill him. Please let me sleep now."
This, meanwhile, is a more comprehensive compliation of his and other related live-tweeting from Abbottobad last night, including some interjections from well-known foreign affairs and policy people in the US (incl. Keith Urbahn, Rumsfeld's former chief of staff who is credited with being the first to actually somewhat confidently break the news of bin Laden's death - again via Twitter): http://chirpstory.com/li/1294
(The NYT also ran this great story this morning on how the news broke more generally in the US in the hours between the actual raid and Obama's press conference)
Meanwhile, in the always wild world of mapping, a (relatively) huge flurry of excitement has been buzzing about the amateur mapping/GIS community about where exactly the compound is and whether it is visible in satelite images. Some user somewhere had "added" the place to google maps within an hour of the raid announcement (http://t.co/kZqedLP). While the folks at this blog Ogle Earth have probably the best amateur scientific approach to cross-referencing visual sources and determining where exactly they think it is.
Anyway, none of this is really "surprising" in this day and age, but it's sure as hell impressive to me just how much information can be created, processed, and shared on such comparatively "low" or "popular" levels so globally and so quickly, no official media channels required. Pretty neat.
UPDATE: the above-mentioned Ogle Earth reports the CIA has confirmed the location of Bin Laden compound and released aerial imagery (scroll to end of article): http://bit.ly/kjrCph
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