Tracking conversations and trends online has become something of a craft since social media took off, and it's a powerful way to pick up on breaking news and what has captured the public imagination. Why, one Susan Boyle was the most common term on Twitter for more than a week - before being beaten down by swine flu.

    There's a swathe of social media "monitoring" tools being pushed by rather annoying marketing firms obsessed with tracking "buzz" about a brand or product.

    For a web-savvy news organisation, top trending terms on sites like Twitter and Google's search trends can dictate the news agenda too - watch what people want to read about, and do quick turnaround news stories to meet that demand.

    But this week, it's all about swine flu. "Swine flu symptoms" is the most searched-for term on the Guardian site today, while Swine Flu, #swineflu and Mexico are the most common terms on Twitter, where the subject accounted for 2% of all messages yesterday, according to Nielsen.

    While that reflects public interest and the news agenda, it also highlights how many of us turn to the web as our first source of information. The web is famously treacherous as a self-diagnosis tool; a perfect example of how a little information can be dangerous; some Twitter users have been spreading message about not eating pork (it's not possible to catch swine flu from eating infected meat).

    Evgeny Morozon on Foreign Policy is rather po-faced about what he calls "Twitter's role in facilitating an unnecessary global panic". As ever, Twitter is reflecting real-world behaviour and not driving it. He reels off eight irresponsible tweets but takes them all without context; if anyone you followed had posted any of these, wouldn't you have taken them to task?

    "If my reading list on Twitter was only restricted to the individuals who had produced the posts above, by now I would be extremely scared and probably feeling a great urge to post a scary Twitter update myself," he writes. That's a very big "if" though - most of us don't follow a whole group of idiots - and are also capable of recognising a joke when we see one.

    "In moments like this, one is tempted to lament the death of broadcasting, for it seems that the information from expert sources – government, doctors, and the like – should probably be prioritised over everything else and have a higher chance of being seen that the information from the rest of one's Twitter-feed, full of speculation, misinformation, and gossip."

    隨著社會媒體的飛速發展,在網絡上跟蹤會話和趨勢已經演變一種工藝,這是一種解構和重建重大新聞的強有力方式并吸引公眾的想象力。你看,蘇珊波伊爾(《英倫有才人》選秀中以一曲《悲慘世界》中《我曾有夢》而一鳴驚人的47歲英國平民大媽)在Twitter網(即時信息的一個變種,允許用戶將自己的最新動態和想法以短信息的形式發送給手機和個性化網站群,而不僅僅是發送給個人。)上榮登榜首一個多星期,然而豬流感一來,她的席位就立刻被打退了。

    作為嫻熟網絡的新聞機構,Twitter網站或者谷歌搜索趨勢能夠指引新聞條目--它們能知道人們想要看什么新聞,并且迅速轉身作新聞故事,以滿足人們的這一需求。

    但是這一周,所有網絡新聞千篇一律地是關于“豬流感”。“豬流感癥狀“是今天衛報網站上被搜索最多的條目,而”豬流感“,“豬流感和墨西哥“是Twitter上最常出現的狀態,根據尼爾森數據顯示這些信息狀態占了昨天所有信的百分之二。

    雖然這反映了公眾的興趣和新聞機構,同時也顯示出了如今我們很多人將網絡作為第一手信息的來源。網絡是臭名昭著的死我診斷工具,是證明不完全的信息可能會很危險。一些Twitter使用者已經開始散步諸如不能吃豬肉的消息。(其實通過吃豬肉感染豬流感根本是不可能的)

    咨詢專家莫諾佐夫(Evgeny Morozov)在《外交政策》(ForeignPolicy)上表示,Twitter可能在這次來勢洶洶的豬流感疫情中加快散播負面消息,全球有可能因此而陷入不必要的恐慌。 和以往一樣,Twitter只是反映了現實世界的行為而不是在驅使現實世界。 他一口氣說出了八個極不負責的Twitter上的留言,如果你twitter上的好友發出了這樣的言論,你難道會去指責他們嗎?

    莫諾佐夫寫到,“如果我twitter的狀態閱讀清單上只有這些人張貼出來的狀態,我現在一定是恐慌至極難以自拔,而且很有可能自己會去更新一個嚇人的Twitter信息,” 盡管這只是一個的“可能”,因為我們不可能只會跟著去看一群傻瓜的狀態,但卻能讓我們看到一個笑話調侃時能認出它來。

    莫諾佐夫還說道“在這樣的時候,人們會被吸引區悲嘆廣播宣傳的實質上的死亡,因為這些信息看起來是來源于專家--政府,醫生等,比起那些在只是待在Twitter上,被猜測、誤導和留言充斥的人們,他們應該能考慮到更多并有更多的機會能看到事實。”