Do you remember when the Internet first came "online"? I do. Many media pundits talked about that moment as the "real" twenty-four hour news cycle. Sure CNN was doing its thing, but the news seemed more repetitive than constant and always updating. Only recently do I really feel the impact of a true twenty-four hour news cycle.

It really is all the news… all the time. The craziest part is that the real "producers" – the real "first on the scene" types – are you and I.

Early yesterday morning, I woke up and saw a tweet from Chris Clarke (hey, little PR buddy!) about the crazy explosions that rocked Toronto. From that 140-character Twitter message, I was directed to some startling YouTube videos. A quick glance to the major news outlets, and you could tell by the editorial content that they were still scrambling to get sources, copy, visuals and more organized.

The way we get our news keeps changing and evolving. The writing has been on the wall for a while. In May of 2007, I even Blogged about here: TNN – Twitter News Network Or How I Found Out About The Google – Feedburner Acquisition. I had my own little moment of zen today again.

As announced on this Blog this past Friday, Twist Image opened up our Toronto office (Twist Image Toronto – Let’s Twist Again). The "plan" around PR was to post it on the Blog and do some kind of formal event/launch later on. The logic behind posting it on the Blog was that Leigh and Virginia had left their previous gigs and wanted to update their LinkedIn and Facebook profiles. In the interest of transparency, etc… the business partners at Twist Image figured it would make sense to, at least, Blog about it here.

This morning, I noticed the lead story in the e-newsletter, Media In Canada (produced by Brunico Communications – home of Strategy Magazine), was: Twist Image launches in Toronto (as a slight correction to the news item, I’m not the only owner of Twist Image. We’re four equal partners at the agency. I’m joined by Mark Goodman, Mickael Kanfi and Aubrey Rosenhek). Shortly after that, I got a phone call from the Montreal Gazette for an interview, and not long after that another one from Marketing Magazine asking if they had missed some kind of press release (the good folks at Marketing Magazine should know that if we had done any kind of press release, they’d be the first to know).

This ain’t one of those "the traditional press release is dead" Blog postings, but I was further amazed how something "out in the world" on Friday really found its mass media interest on Monday morning. I also know that we didn’t really expect any major media attention derived from this one Blog posting (goes to show you that none of us are great at guessing what makes the news). Both incidents (this one and my Twitter and the Toronto explosion one) really made me step back and realize that my trusted news source now comes from anybody and everybody – both the mass media and the individual at home with the fastest fingers.

As a former (and now part-time) Journalist, this type of interaction with news and content surprises and delights me at every turn. I can’t imagine the way it used to be and I can’t imagine how much more interesting it is going to get.