Money literally could not buy this kind of publicity for Brand Britain Read more: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/business/opinion/view-from-london/money-literally-could-not-buy-this-kind-of-publicity-for-brand-britain

The demise of terrorist Osama bin Laden continued to shake up the world on Monday as details spread of a daring raid by U.S. Navy Seals that took out the Al Qaeda leader. There was an early surge in stock prices, and oil initially fell more than three percent, but skepticism about the future of the Middle East soon caused a correction, Reuters reported.
Traditional vs Social Media
The event was also an extravaganza for conventional media as well as emerging social-media communications. TV networks broke into their regularly scheduled programming around 10:40 p.m. Eastern time Sunday night to announce the news after the White House sent out an advisory that President Barack Obama would address the nation. That didn't happen for almost an hour, leaving correspondents such as Geraldo Rivera of Fox and Wolf Blitzer of CNN awkwardly grasping for information, frequently shifting between commentators and file footage of bin Laden while waiting for details.
Meanwhile, the social-media infrastructure , which was in its infancy when the Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center attacks occurred, faced perhaps the biggest worldwide news event since then, except perhaps the election of Obama in 2008.
Twitter reported a new record of both average tweets per second and an all-time per-second high during the president's brief speech and the aftermath. "Last night saw the highest sustained rate of tweets ever" at 3,440, the company reported, with a peak of 5,106 around 11 p.m. EDT, when many TV viewers were tuning into the late news.
"Facebook and Twitter are exploding today with comments, reposting of news stories, and a good bit of humor/commentary," Professor Davis Houck of the Florida State University School of Communication told us. "When the story broke [Sunday] night on social media, I'm guessing many quickly sought out more traditional media, notably television, especially given that President Obama would soon be addressing the nation. As this week begins, though, social media is again buzzing with the latest ... news updates and, again, a good bit of humor."

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