Tweets of the Week

The debates are over. What on earth could possibly fill the void of news-buzz until the Twitter armageddon that will be election night? Oh…one of the worst natural disasters the U.S. has ever seen…hitting New York City? Okay. Darth Vader shelving the whole “give in to hate” thing and joining Mickey Mouse’s side for a $4 billion price tag, coupled with the announcement of a seventh Star Wars episode due out in 2015? Sounds good. I think we’re set.

Despite Disney’s purchase of Lucasfilm, however, Hurricane Sandy was easily Twitter’s top topic of the week. According to Twitter, the hurricane was tweeted about over 20 million times between Oct. 27 and Nov. 1. That’s a lot. And not only did Twitter serve as a forum for discussion of the historic storm, it was easily the fastest, most reliable and most comprehensive news source for those following along Monday night during height of the destruction. New Yorkers were tweeting and re-tweeting Instagram-ed pictures of the damage, giving real-time updates of the status of their neighborhoods and lending others a real sense of the mood of those affected. After receiving a steady stream of coverage from Twitter, traditional online and broadcast news sources seemed outdated and almost painfully behind the ball, offering only a filtered version of news that had already broken half an hour ago on Twitter.

Also in the news this week was Disney’s aforementioned aquisition of Lucasfilm, reaction to Halloween and outrage at New York City’s insistence on running the New York Marathon as scheduled in the wake (literally) of Hurricane Sandy.

Take a look at this and more below. Tweets have been ordered chronologically, more or less, for your convenience.

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