Never quite got the whole 'twitter' thing.

Oh, I understand how it works....but why would you want to be constantly doing this?

Many people w repressed or hostile governments have since the early 1990s at least used a well honed system of texting as their news wires.

Had no internet had developed in the US, people there probably would have picked this up too. Once Verizon and ATT cell phone service advanced to the level of the service provided to that available to, say, the Chinese.

Verizon's 9/11 immediate cell phone infrastructure collapse, due to high usage, killed the idea of counting on them in an emergency, apparently.

OK so tell me about Twitter.

I detect a meta message here which is an implicit blaming of the little western coverage there was directly on the scene with any notion of aiding the terrorist, whereas the Indian media is let off the hook, because they don't know any better (they've only been around 5 years or so...). The truth is, the handling of the crisis was a source of wide spread embarrassment in India, something that the likes of CNN regurgitated globally around the world. Twitter however allows for a self censored grass roots reporting style and lacks some of the visual properties, that is such a sore spot, whether perceived or real. Curious how Twitter is the only technology of it's kind mentioned here, I'm quite sure there are countless others that were involved in relaying bulletin style news blurbs.

And why not show dead bodies? Who was the "we" Mishra indicated when they decided for everyone else whether pics of the dead should be shown? Why shouldn't they?