Twitter has become somewhat of an obsession for the media of late, and traffic to the site itself has shot up by 974% in just a year. Already praised for its ability to break news first, many main stream publications such as The Guardian and the New York Times have embraced Twitter and use it constantly.

So the next step for most media based 'Tweeters' is how to use Twitter to maximum effect, and the latest application is Twitterlocal, which allows users to stream posts by geographical area. There are obvious benefits for local journalists using this tool, as it gives them the capacity to follow all Tweets relevant to their area. But it could also be useful for national journalists to keep up with developing news stories around the world - the Mumbai terror attacks or the current Melbourne forest fires for example. Just one more example of social media and journalism going hand in hand to produce the news.

Source: Journalism.co.uk