APEC Sydney: A Social Media Perspective

I've had a few APEC related social media experiences this week, mostly via Twitter. Earlier in the week I mentioned on Twitter just how much security was beginning to emerge in the lead up to APEC.

My Twitter friend Connie Reece then let me know that one of her Twitter friends, newmediajim, was part of the press crew on-board Air Force One. He was on is way from Iraq to Sydney for APEC at that very moment. She encouraged me to follow his twitter, as he was going to be twittering the event when they landed in Sydney. I started to follow Newmediajim and he reciprocated when he began twittering from Sydney.

A short time later I mentioned on Twitter that when walking down the streets near where I work in the city, I felt like I was being watched, and that I wouldn't be surprised if there were snipers around. Almost immediately I was sent a flickr link via Twitter of snipers on a roof just around the corner from the agency. Other local Twitter friends also let me know that they had heard various reports of people seeing snipers in the area.

Finally, on Saturday morning I tweeted that there was a scheduled APEC protest in the Sydney CBD about to happen, because I saw a short report on the morning tv news. Yet another Twitter friend let me know that a News.com.au journalist was on the ground twittering the protest. I was able to follow what was going on, and I was also able to let newmediajim know about this apecsydney2007 Twitter feed. He said he was isolated from the protest and would like to know more of what was going on outside the security barriers.

Every day I'm becoming more and more impressed with the power of new social media, and especially of the immediacy and value of Twitter as a social media tool. As my network grows, I feel like the degrees of separation from almost any event or person are becoming fewer. It makes me wonder just who I might be able to contact or what I might be able to find out if I put a request out through my growing network. Perhaps I should do a little experiment soon...