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Bin Laden Blogged: How One Twitter User Live Blogged the Death of Americas Most Wanted
As the news of Osama Bin Laden’s death started to spread across the world, there was one place that had the most up to date developments from around the world. Before President Obama could take to his podium Twitter had come to life with accounts flooding in from around the world. One account in particular caught the attention of Tweeters trying to find out exactly what had happened to Americas most wanted. Sohaib Athar, or @ReallyVirtual as he is known on the micro blogging site, managed to pretty much live-tweet the events taking place in Abbottabad on the night of Bin Laden’s death. The IT consultant was unaware of the significance of his updates as he witnessed the U.S military operation unfolding. The first post ‘Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event)’ was the first of a stream of Tweets describing the top secret mission. Before the world’s media even had an inkling of the historic events that would take place, @ReallyVirtual found himself witnessing a mission that had been ongoing for ten years.
Nine hours after his first Tweet, the news broke of the death of the international terrorist’s death, during that time @ReallyVirtual has amassed a large number of followers from all around the world. Situated mere kilometres from the scene of the planned attack, Sohaib described how he had heard one of the helicopters crash. As the world’s media started to pick up on the night’s events, Sohaib realised just what he had been sharing on the site, Tweeting ‘Uh oh, now I’m the guy who live blogged the Osama raid without knowing it’.
Tweeting a picture of the cordoned off street outside of his house, @ReallyVirtual provided a valuable insight into a landmark event, proving once again just how important the micro-blogging site has become over the last few years. It is safe to say that Sohaib Athar will pick up more than a few followers over the next few days however even with his sudden celebrity, the IT consultant remains refreshingly humble ‘I am JUST a tweeter, awake at the time of the crash. Not many twitter users in Abbottabad, these guys are more into Facebook. That’s all.”
Follow Sohaib at http://twitter.com/#!/reallyvirtual