The day a guy with 170 Twitter followers changed the world of information forever
Go Deeper.
Create an account or log in to save stories.
Like this?
Thanks for liking this story! We have added it to a list of your favorite stories.
Janis Krums changed the world of information and news 10 years ago Tuesday.
Maybe Twitter would have eventually become an accepted source of news and information if he hadn't been on a ferry on the Hudson River, trying to beat traffic, when he was the first one to tell the world an airliner had landed in it.
But he gave it a swift kick into orbit (there's also an argument to be made that the Mumbai rail station attacks were the pivot point, but the story never caught on in the U.S. primarily because it was being told on Twitter).
He snapped this picture and tweeted it. Sadly, for all its value to history, the tweet with the picture is no longer available. Twitter isn't much for history.
Turn Up Your Support
MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all.
If it happened today, Twitter would be flooded with images. But in 2009, he noted today, he was the only one.
Krums had 170 followers on Twitter at the time, and yet the image raced around the world in minutes.
He mostly favors Instagram for photos now.