News travels fast

Many of us have often marvelled at how Twitter often scoops the mainstream press and news is announced first on Twitter by ordinary people.  Last week's earthquake in Los Angeles is evidence of that. 

And this morning's propane explosion in Toronto really demonstrates the impact of Twitter as well. Jeremiah Owyang (does this guy ever sleep?) was following the story on Twitter.

 

Photographer Rannie Turingan awoke to the sounds of explosions and went to work, twittering as he posted photos. His blog, Photojunkie, captured the story before any of the mainstream media. However, not only were the Photojunkie pictures picked up my major newspapers and magazines, but LA Times Travel blogger, Jen Leo, wrote about the story this morning based on her reading @jowyang's twitter stream. 

For a steady stream of Twitter explosion updates, Search.twitter.com (Summize) has a great feed.