Clay Shirky: Review

Clay Shirky encapsulated the current state of modern social devices and their influences on the social world.  Social devices such as cell phones with picture and video messaging, Twitter, and Facebook are enabling users to report news as it happens.  Shirky uses the massive earthquake that recently happened in China as an example.  Citizens reported news on the earthquake as it happened by uploading videos and photos onto the internet for all of the world to see.  Breaking news coming from Twitter is a new, developing trend but it doesn't mean the end of professional journalism.  We still need professionally trained journalists to interpret events and gain access to and publicize information that an amateur cannot.  If anything, these amateur reports coming from Twitter and other social media will only push the professional journalists to be more proactive and creative, which will lead to enhanced news coverage for the audience.  These social devices also have an influence on companies outside of the journalist market.  Companies and even politicians now must understand that users can not only communicate back to the company but they can also communicate with each other.  This type of innovation can happen anywhere and innovation now moves through the world.