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I was recently quoted in AJC in a story on Iran’s ‘Twitter Revolution’ –

Some, however, think the importance of Twitter is being overblown. Among them is social media blogger Gaurav Mishra. He wrote last week that the actual number of Twitter users in Iran was small, and that Twitter reports, rather than being an organizing tool for the protesters, mainly helped focus international media attention on the protests.

I have previously written about why the term Twitter Revolution is already a cliche, after Moldova and Iran.

Here is the full text of the story –

‘Net effect: Social media aid uprising

Staff and news services

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Media control

Iran’s government controls its traditional media: newspapers, radio and television. Atop the government are the Islamic clerics of the Guardian Council and the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, who supports incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The government also controls access to the country by foreign media.  Read More

I was recently interviewed by Elisabeth Eaves at Forbes on a story on why there is no ‘Twitter Revolution’ in Iran –

In Iran, too, Twitter is probably much less useful as an initial planning tool than are private channels like e-mail, text messaging and voice telephone calls. The social media site certainly doesn’t account for getting everyone into the streets–going into the election there were only about 10,000 Iranian Twitter users, by Mishra’s estimate, whereas since then hundreds of thousands of people have protested each day.

What Twitter and Facebook can do is spread information to large groups. In any crisis, that’s important, both to the participants and to the outside world. But what is the true value of Iranian tweets? On one hand, they are more valuable than crisis tweets would be in a country with a free press, because they are one of the few sources of information the government has not found a way to control. During the terrorist attack on Mumbai hotels in 2008, plenty of Indians tweeted about the events. But, Mishra observes, “in India people were actually watching news on television, not Twitter. In Iran … social media are the only things you have.”

I was recently quoted in an MSNBC story on Iran’s Twitter Revolution –

In fact, there’s a danger in giving too much emphasis to the role played by online media in Iran’s political crisis, said Gaurav Mishra, co-founder of 20:20 Web Tech, a social media research and analytics company.

“Calling what’s happening in Iran a ‘Twitter Revolution’ is not only distracting but also dangerous,” he wrote on his blog, “because it reduces a legitimate broad-based grassroots movement to what’s quickly becoming a cliche.”

I recently did an interview with Worldfocus on Iran’s ‘Twitter Revolution’. The Skype video didn’t really work, so they have posted the transcript of the interview instead.

It is a little too stream of consciousness, but capture my views on what tools like Twitter and Facebook can or cannot do in an international crisis situation like the Iran protest or the Mumbai terrorist attacks.

Here is the full text of the interview –

Iran’s “Twitter Revolution” — myth or reality?

The Iranian government has restricted all journalists working for foreign news organizations from reporting on the streets of Tehran, where thousands have been gathering to protest the country’s disputed presidential election. What’s been harder to control is social media tools like Twitter, where thousands of users post and share information worldwide.

Gaurav Mishra is the co-founder of social media research and analytics company 20:20 Web Tech and a 2009 Fellow at the Society for New Communications Research. He previously taught social media at Georgetown University and co-founded Vote Report India. He joined Worldfocus to discuss the role of Twitter in the aftermath of Iran’s election.  Read More