Online media led by Twitter keeps outside world informed of terror inside

The recently-concluded Mumbai terror attacks resulted in an unprecedented rise of unconventional media, which has often trumped their traditional counterparts in imparting up-to-date knowledge of the mayhem. Social networking sites and blogs have taken the lead in keeping the world outside the besieged hotels knowledgeable about the terrorists' activities inside.

Some of the prominent social networking platforms, including Facebook and Twitter, had ben providing on-the-scene updates, after a few moments when the first shot was fired Twitter gained an edge with around 50 to 100 messages - popularly known as ''tweets'' - labelled under the chain of ''#mumbai'' or ''Mumbai'', uploaded every 60 seconds.

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service, that allows its users to send and read other users' updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.

Updates are displayed on the user's profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. The sender can restrict delivery to those in his or her circle of friends (delivery to everyone being the default). Users can receive updates via the Twitter website, SMS, RSS, email or through an application such as TwitterFon, Twitterrific, Feedalizr or Facebook.

When the news of the attack first broke out, tweets were being posted on the website at an astonishing rate of around 14 messages per second, according to sources. Tweets were also posted urging users to rush to JJ Hospital in Mumbai for donating blood, as stocks are likely to fall short in the wake of this carnage.

Bloggers were also active, compiling news reports and contact information and information on blogging sites like mumbaihelp.blogspot.com. Others produced live blogs for their local television stations. Meanwhile, hostages at the Taj Mahal kept up to date with events by surfing the internet on their mobile phones.

One of the first bits of information of the tragedy came from Vinukumar Ranganathan, a Mumbai-based journalist, who captured around 300 photographs of the atrocity, and uploaded them on to his Flickr account, and the photos have been viewed around 50,000 times on the website.

In addition, a new page, dubbed as ''November 2008 Mumbai Attacks'', has been added on Wikipedia, within few minutes of the news hit the blogosphere, and a team of editors are continuously adding real-time details in it.