The mass and velocity of tweets, Facebook posts and even blog posts surrounding the Olympics have been extraordinarily high. But, if you analyze the content, you'll see that the high volume conversations are focused mostly on interesting stories.
The North Vietnamese victory was largely made possible by the United States failing to provide timely and accurate reports to the media. “Even worse,” writes Hammes, “the government had squandered its credibility with the press and through them, with the U.S. public.”
After insurgents launched multiple, simultaneous attacks inside Kabul’s government and diplomatic areas on April 15, many in the media were quick to label the attacks as a “Taliban Tet Offensive”. The media’s reference was to the 1968 Tet Offensive, which involved tens of thousands of North Vietnamese regulars and thousands of Viet Cong irregulars. The communist guerillas attacked the length and breadth of South Vietnam from Hue in the north, to the Mekong Delta to the American Embassy in Saigon (Garamone, 2012).
"If somebody thinks that 140 characters is the diplomatic solution to solving the world’s problems then we’ve got a big problem. Twitter really wasn't created for diplomacy. Twitter’s not even created to have a conversation," he said.
The London 2012 Games have been touted as the first Olympics to live fully in the age of social media. After all, the organization's Twitter feed has nearly 1.4 million followers...But a rash of scandals and news related to Twitter has put a new mark on the face of these games. And, as they say, it ain't pretty.
According to a new study done by PR firm Burson-Marsteller, two-thirds of the world’s leaders have joined Twitter, including 16 members of the G-20. But while Twitter is a powerful tool, it has its limits and will never replace traditional diplomacy.