First published for Silicon Beach training here on 15/01/2010

The power of social media was on full display this week as people took to social networking sites to blog, tweet, post and update their statuses.

There’s nothing particularly new in these activities, what is amazing is what they were posting about and the effect this had on the biggest disaster so far this year.

From eyewitness accounts, to calls for aid – social media effectively broke the news on Haiti’s worst quake in two centuries. Proving once again that news is becoming dependent on social media and its legions of users’ real time updates.

News of the earthquake spread within hours through Twitter, with photos of the earthquake appearing soon after.

Help Haiti and the Red Cross have been trending topics in the days following the quake, and tweets from high profile celebrities such as Wyclef Jean have helped spread the word of the plight of the western hemisphere’s poorest country.

Even the biggest news networks had to rely on social networks to get information on the earthquake in Haiti. Twitter was again seemingly the media of choice, mirroring last summer’s explosion of Tweets on Iran.

It is the personal nature of these networks that make their cries for help so much more effective.
But still, plenty of people use Twitter, Facebook and the like to update the world on what they had for breakfast or how bad their hangover is.

A current popular trend on twitter is about what you would do to your partner if they cheated on you and lets not forget the #lowbudgetmovie’s geeky humour. Showing that despite social medias now increasingly important role in news and serious discussion, it can at the same time be entertaining and fun.

I for one will be keeping an eye on Twitter Trends. After all; this is the future, real time news from real people.