As of Sunday morning, Sohaib Athar (aka @ReallyVirtual on Twitter) was just “an IT consultant taking a break from the rat-race by hiding in the mountains.” Those mountains happened to be Abbottabad, northern Pakistan. On his LinkedIn profile, the Preston grad/IT contractor and mentions he is a “startup specialist”, but now owns a coffee shop.
From today forever forward however, Athar will become known as the guy who live-tweeted a series of helicopter flypasts and explosions; unwittingly covering the US forces helicopter raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound. Live. And he knows it. Here’s a selection of his Tweets:
As discussed previously, social media has been a prominent player in the shifting ways people are consuming and spreading news. Never before in our history has news been able to reach the masses on such a large, rapid scale. Because news spreads so rapidly across these services however, stories often peak and fade out of public consciousness much quicker. So, while news is more accessible, it seems it has become less meaningful as well. For brands trying to make a ripple in the ocean amongst these big waves, the challenge becomes all together tougher.