The Giant Pumpkin - Oct 30

Today’s readings were primarily geared at using social networking and specifically twitter to help us in our field of history.  Dr. Gulliver focused her article on how twitter helps her in her field, and how building up relationships with other historians assists her in research.  I found that particular article interesting because while I have an account for twitter, I do not use it in any of the ways she was trying to stress.

The other half of the readings dealt with the crossroads we are in right now as historians who are trying to document more recent events are trying to figure out how to incorporate twitter and other forms of media into our research.  We’ve been talking throughout the semester about how important social media is becoming in our society, and I thought it was cool to see some of the ways that people are beginning to display the information from these sites. 

I enjoyed looking at some of the maps that the Wall Street Journal put together for twitter responses to major events like the 2010 elections and the earthquake in Virginia.  The ability to display the time it took people to react to the earthquake can be very useful to a historian that is trying to do research on the speed at which information is being shared among people. 

While there are still some people that are skeptical of social media, it is proving to be very useful for entertainment and professional purposes.  It is one of the areas that will continue to evolve over the next five years, and will be our responsibility to keep up with the changes.