By Gina Cuclis
Yesterday evening I was captivated by my Search Sonoma panel in TweetDeck, noticing the countless tweets and retweets about the appalling breaking news from Sonoma. The house of a family of four killed Saturday night in a car crash was ransacked Monday night by burglars. It's one of those stories that's so unbelievable, it's major news. Even a  couple "dogs" tweeted the news.Illustrates the "Social" of Social Media

I learned of the upsetting news when I glanced at my TweetDeck and noticed a tweet from a local plumber, which I retweeted. As I continued to look at my Twitter stream, I noticed tweet after tweet expressing disgust. Several different San Francisco Bay Area traditional news sites were cited, including my town's community newspaper, the Sonoma Index-Tribune.
Prior to the digital age, most of us would have learned about this tragic incident from our evening TV news, or from listening to drive time radio. Now, not only do we hear about it sooner, we have a means to instantly share and re-share how we feel about it with the world. Those following the story yesterday on Twitter didn't have to have someone nearby to share their emotions. In years past, those who like to share how they feel would have picked up the phone to call a friend or family member saying, "did you hear the awful news?"

I'm not judging whether this change is good or bad. I'm just noticing it's happening. Even in a small community, where everybody supposedly knows everybody else.

This Morning's Update

News on the Twitter stream today is that police in San Mateo arrested two people who had the Maloney family's stolen car.

If you have thoughts about how people are using Twitter or other social media to share their feelings about major news, please leave a comment.