Twitter seems to be a pretty good source of unverified citizen journalism.

First it was the earthquake in China (beating the USGS by about 3 minutes, so that’s debatable).

And now it’s Sue Simmons on WNBC’s nightly local NY newscast dropping the F-Bomb on live television, as reported by @tombiro.

Publishing has never been so instant.

Here’s Sue’s WTF moment:

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• Ian thinks its only a matter of time before legit news starts breaking over twitter. Tech news anyway. It’ll be great to see a tweet sourced #
• Ian says, "follow @stevehall for hot ad:tech on twitter action." #
• Wired on fighting back against ’splogs’. Bravo. Ian hates splogs with a passion. http://snurl.com/24k4o #
• Retweeting @alisamleo: can’t believe AKQA sent out emails to college students telling them to talk up Target on FB but not to tell peopl … #
• Retweeting @alisamleo: question: how did you get people to join Pages? panel’s answer?? BANNER ADS! ahhhH! WHERE ARE THE WOMMA PEOPLE!! #
• Wife DVR-ing American Idol AND Biggest Loser at the same time. I’m left slingbox-ing the Mets game from the bedroom onto my mac. Irony. #
• @tombiro Squiddo spammers. Talk about big purple irony. #
• Ian would love a tweet if a Deep Focus campaign wins at the ad:tech awards… #
• From IanSchafer.com: Twitter Updates for 2008-04-15. http://tinyurl.com/67wwro #
• @stevebaker Social Media has given brands another potential opportunityto build relationships, only to blow it by running more campaigns. #

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I’ve turned off my daily Twitter digests. So if you really want them back, say so in the comments.

Otherwise, you can follow me at twitter.com/ischafer.

They’re good. Trust me.

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• From IanSchafer.com: Self-Destructing IMs? http://tinyurl.com/3ktsvh #
• From IanSchafer.com: Closure on the McCain Girls. http://tinyurl.com/6q6sux #
• From IanSchafer.com: So What Do You Want Me To Blog More About? http://tinyurl.com/4rfv3g #
• From IanSchafer.com: See Me At Content Delivery Econmics in NYC On April 22nd. http://tinyurl.com/4bzo8v #
• From IanSchafer.com: Twitter Updates for 2008-04-14. http://tinyurl.com/5lx9gd #
• @Armano Ian thinks there’s something dually funny/disturbing about a Cougar being shot in Chicago. #

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• From IanSchafer.com: Twitter Updates for 2008-04-13. http://tinyurl.com/6ef4h8 #
• Reminder to check out AdAge’s DIGITALNEXT blog, where I’ve written the first post. FIRST! http://snurl.com/24eej #
• Snap Poll: Should Ian write a book expanding on my blog post in AdAge but from a brand perspective? http://snurl.com/24f2j #
• @tangerinetoad I don’t have the time, but it’s never stopped me before… #
• @bmorrissey brilliant. for the next few days (at least), all my tweets will be in third person. call it beta-testing a new format. #
• @bmorrissey I’m pretty sure Virgin Mobile had this as a service offering. #
• Ian is going to the last Knicks game of the season tonight. If you’ll also be there, direct message him. Ian would love to see you. #
• @ckobran Free food is the least the Knicks can give Ian after this season. Lets go Knicks & Rangers. http://snurl.com/24fic #
• @tangerinetoad This third-person thing is fun. It’s like Ian has a tweet-tern. I’m the Charles Barkley of Twitter. #

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Occasionally you stumble across something that makes you go hmmmm…this could be interesting.

For those of you that didn’t like IM because of the ‘trail’ it left when discussing ’sensitive’ topics, this might be for you.

Apparently, BigString (historically, providers of free email) will be launching an AIM plugin on Wednesday that will ’self-destruct’ IM messages sent, on demand. It deletes traces of them on both computers, as well as any server.

While this doesn’t seem directly like an advertising or marketing opportunity for advertisers, it could probably be co-opted, or sponsored, if the right brand was out there.

I bet there are plenty of IMs that you’ve wish you never sent. Would’ve been nice to have this then.

More information is available here.

With all the talk about Twitter, it seems that there is still room for technological advancements in the world of instant messaging.

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• From IanSchafer.com: From AdAge: An Open Letter To Social Network Site CEOs. http://tinyurl.com/4hsc7s #
• @lbbinc Maybe the problem is in the word ‘model’. Seems to over-standardize the way it should be utilized. It’s all about relationships. #
• From IanSchafer.com: Twitter Updates for 2008-04-12. http://tinyurl.com/6db7bg #

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• From IanSchafer.com: Twitter Updates for 2008-04-11. http://tinyurl.com/3maj9y #
• Is it me, or does this feel like an ad? Maybe I’m just paranoid. But it feels like a ’special advertising section’. http://snurl.com/2483k #
• @bmorrissey two cents added. #
• CW. OMFG. Interesting. http://snurl.com/248mk #
• From IanSchafer.com: 10 New Social Media/Advertising Buzzwords. http://tinyurl.com/4om4dt #

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• I think Aaron Heilman should pitch during the home run derby this year. ARGH! #
• Hmmmm. I just noticed that Amazon.com doesn’t have a link to ’sign in’ on their homepage. Odd. #
• @tangerinetoad Did Amazon UI testing deem a username/password field superfluous? C’mon @armano. Drop some knowledge here. #
• @tangerinetoad Yes, but why would Amazon want to increase the number of pageviews it takes to log in to buy something? #
• @rje7 Twitter allows me to have intellectual conversations with intellectual people. And Ricky. Just kidding. #
• Another day, another video on the local news of students beating each other up. #
• From IanSchafer.com: When ‘Open’ Isn’t Really ‘Open’. The Battle to Own Your Code — .. http://tinyurl.com/5xruhh #
• From IanSchafer.com: Twitter Updates for 2008-04-10. http://tinyurl.com/44ewax #
• No offense to anyone, but isn’t this list like trying to pick out the least ugly kid in a school for ugly kids? http://snurl.com/244gb #
• @Armano used to code html & unix, then a media buyer, then a CD/copywriter, then a marketer/movie exec, then started DF. I’m exhausted. #
• @budesigns Really? I’m a big Sket fan. I have the whole set of those figures. I love KidRobot. #
• prepare for your productivity to stop. completely. http://snurl.com/245ic #
• My macbook just died. First time I’ve had a computer die on me. Ugh. #

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• Wow. Yahoo and AOL discussing combining operations. Definitely a move to give shareholders a choice. http://snurl.com/23z6f #
• New Deep Focus site launch for J&J: http://snurl.com/23zci #
• For the last few nights, YouTube’s been about 50% functional as they’re ‘performing site maintenance’. Can you spot the brand new features? #
• This Oprah New Earth thing is a bit weird. Is Oprah the new Elron? #
• From IanSchafer.com: Twitter Updates for 2008-04-09. http://tinyurl.com/5f8d9e #
• From IanSchafer.com: Listen to My Panel @ SXSW Here. http://tinyurl.com/5td8bu #
• Just thinking (awkwardly) that Twitter would be an amazing tool for the OEM or FEMA. #
• @stevehall In order for ad:tech to be a twitterfest, there’s going to need to be something worth twittering about. Here’s hoping there is… #
• @stevehall it’d be more fun if twitter at ad:tech was the meebo chat room of SXSW. #
• The fun part about Facebook sponsored fan pages: you can always tell who the marketing folks are. They are always the first to join. #
• Wow. My cellphone video from Shea showing the Mets getting RickRolled is at over 30,000 views. http://snurl.com/2412e #
• i’m no @jaffejuice or @armano, but I get a kick when I spot a link back to my blog before Google Alerts catches it. Oh, the little things. #
• Bizzare. I twitterred about OEM & FEMA using twitter this morning, and just read this: http://snurl.com/2415h . Text messages are so ‘06. #
• Artie Lange drama on Howard Stern. He resigned. Audio here: http://snurl.com/241j7 #
• @Armano I never understood media ‘agnostic’. Shouldn’t it be ‘neutral’? #
• Time.com goes so, so meta. Or they’re just Digg-baiting. http://snurl.com/241si #
• @tangerinetoad agnostic actually means ‘not knowable’. Wiki says it should be replaced with ‘indifferent’. I’m just a word-geek, I guess. #
• Wouldn’t it be great if you could hyperlink text in Twitter? #
• @tangerinetoad how about agencies just be smart and unbiased and be done with the whole naming scheme. #
• most blatantly gimmicky attempt to capitalize on widget craze I’ve seen in a while: http://snurl.com/242ib #

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