The revolution is not being televised

Twitter is in "the cloud", say the computer geeks. What they mean is that it is everywhere and nowhere. Which means that the Iranian censors cannot find it or block it. Which means that the Iranian protestors are always one step ahead of the authorities.

Because Twitter is live and social, it is being used in five key ways to tell the Iran story:

• People are using it to organize.
• Protestors are using it to contact each other.
• Iranians are using it to inform the world about the situation.
• Those outside Iran are using it to find out what's going on in the country.
• Journalists are using it as a way to find people to interview.

Of course, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, mobile phones and Google Maps alone cannot change history. For that to happen, we will always need visionary leaders and courageous people who are willing to fight, and possibly die, for their ideals. But the new technologies enable people to support each other more and more. A networked world is watching and listening now, and even the North Koreans must realize that the old forms of tyranny won't work much longer.

The Sichuan earthquake, the US presidential election, the Mumbai terror attacks, the landing of US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River, the Iranian protests... Twitter is now central to how the news story is told. "The revolution will not be televised", rapped Gil Scott-Heron in 1970. "The revolution will be live," he said.