¡Aguafiestas!

Las manifestaciones en Irán se han organizado a la antigua usanza: mediante el uso de sms, el puerta a puerta y el boca a oreja. Eso explica en businessweek.com Joel Schectman. Dice:

Sysomos, a Toronto-based Web analytics company that researches social media, says there are only about 8,600 Twitter users whose profiles indicate they are from Iran.
[…]
And with the government blocking the Twitter site, that small group becomes even smaller. […] for many users, circumnavigating the government's blockage is too big a hurdle […]. Moreover, Twitter does not support the Farsi language, which limits its utility, particularly in more rural areas of the country.

Nada, chicos. La revolución queda pendiente. Habrá ocasión: las últimas revueltas internacionales siempre han venido acompañadas luego, sistemáticamente, de información sobre la decisiva presencia de Twitter en la conspiración y/o asonada. En Moldavia (¿Moldavia?), en Ucrania… Es demasié. Cansa un poco.

¿Por qué la prensa le da tanta importancia? Pues por lo de siempre:

"Political organizers use these tools because they create a multiplier effect—not only do you get a story about the campaign but then you also get a story about the fact they are using social-networking tools," [Gaurav] Mishra [co-founder of 20:20 WebTech, a company that analyzes the effects of social media] says. "So you get two stories for the price of one. The international media loves [the] social-networking world. But in India or in Iran, their use is still somewhat limited." […]

Ethan Zuckerman, a senior researcher at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society [says:] "The reason social media is so interesting [for the press] is that the international media doesn't have its members on the ground."

Porque ahora la rueda/comunicado de prensa ya no se celebra en el salón de actos del ministerio con el secretario de Estado, sino en Twitter y con la gente de la calle. Por diversos motivos, ninguno es fiable: hay que hacer periodismo, periodismo, periodismo con todas esas fuentes. Ni Twitter ni los twitters pueden relevar al profesional.