Every so often we're pulled into a live stream of tweets that broadcasts an event play-by-play on Twitter. Most recently, a Houston hospital live tweeted a brain surgery -- complete with photos.
Usually the events are relatively high-profile -- it seems like almost everyone live tweets the Oscars and the State of the Union. But sometimes we get hooked on a feed of live tweets that are so odd we wonder why anyone would have the gall to send the 140 characters out into to the world.
Take the National Zoo's recent panda insemination, for example. It's an interesting social media campaign, but it certainly made for some colorful and bizarre tweets. Imagine arriving near the end of that conversation.
Live tweeting dates back to the early days of Twitter, which debuted in 2006, but didn't really take off until a few years later, around the same time how-to guides started popping up online. Music fans, doctors and journalists jumped on the opportunity to capitalize on their social media presence while also providing explicit details in traditional live broadcast fashion.
Like live blogs, live tweet feeds tend to focus on coverage of widely recognized events. However, two subsets have emerged: behind-the-scenes tweets, such as the backstage happenings concerts or award shows, and live reactions -- Aziz Ansari recently live tweeted his reaction to the "G.I. Joe Retaliation" trailer.
Although some types of events are a bit overdone -- looking at you, live tweeted marriage proposals -- there's certainly room for fresh ideas that haven't been tried before.
Has anyone live tweeted while skydiving? Not that we know of -- if that's even possible. Don't do that. Seriously.
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