Twitter, which is less of a social network and more an information network — and arguably the most effective broadcast channel in the world, giving voice to anyone, anywhere, with a mobile or Internet connection

Jose Antonio Vargas: Egypt, The Age Of Disruption And The ‘Me’ In Media

Not the focus of this article from which I quote it, but  this is an interesting question.  Is Twitter an “information network” more than it is a “Social Network”.  I think this statement flattens what Twitter is,  which is a bit of both.  It is a “Social Information Network”,  at least for me.  I use it much as I did RSS,  but the added “following” and room for short summary or comment makes it a platform for Citizen Media.

What I’d like to see developed,  somehow,  is a way to discover twitter account links in all of my RSS feeds,  so I can be informed when websites and blogs I followed via RSS are pushing their content to Twitter.  I have added the links from my blog posts to auto post to Twitter,  but many have not.  But I am often discovering content that I used to follow closely via RSS is escaping my attention now,  because of my shifting of attention from my RSS reader (usually Google Reader) to Twitter.  I even follow Dave Winer,  who is the “Father of RSS” via Twitter.

I think most all of the people I tend to follow on Twitter would say that Twitter is both,  and that the best “information networks” are recognizing the power of the Social.  Even Google has been working on “Social Search”  (or was it Bing?….I forget),  showing search results that are derived from what our friends are highlighting via links.

It behooves the church and its Communication folks to immerse themselves in the conversations about the way the Web is incorporating Social.  From where  I sit,  they need to be having the conversations that we see various Web gurus are having about “the Social Graph” and the “activity streams” like we see happening on TWIG (This Week in Google) on @leolaporte ‘s TWIT TV Webcast network,  and on Webcast shows such as The Gillmor Gang (featuring moderator @stevegillmor, @scobleizer Robert Scoble, @dannysullivan of SearchEngineLand,  and many assorted Web gurus).   I have been “evangelizing” for such a curating of insights form the leaders in the Social Web developments,  for use by the church to enable the kinds of conversations we need (and MUST) be having as we consider the way we want to shape our “Webs”;  our “Web 3.0’s”.

Now back to that article that started me on all that ,  to read was it says about Egypt.