Skift Take

Twitter is indeed a news medium the likes of which the world has never seen before, and a Twitter user's tweet about the Miracle on the Hudson is a perfect example of how Twitter is changing the world.

There isn’t much in the Twitter IPO registration statement directly about the travel industry, but Janis Krums‘ tweet about the Miracle on the Hudson, the safe landing of US Airways flight 1549 on the Hudson River on January 15, 2009, is included in the document twice, and will therefore forever be further ensconsed as part of digital and social media lore.

Krums, who refers to himself as “The Miracle on the Hudson Photo Guy,” was on a passenger ferry when the aircraft touched down, and used his iPhone to take the photo of the aircraft’s passengers perched in the river on one of the wings of the jet.

Twitter reproduces Krums’ photo and tweet twice in the IPO registration statement.

It first appears on the fourth page, even before the table of contents, as do tweets about Hurricane Sandy from Hoboken, New Jersey mayor Dawn Zimmer, the American Red Cross, and New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Krums’ tweet and twitpic also appear on page 96 of the report as an example of how Twitter’s real-time content/news has a broader reach than traditional media outlets. Twitter states:

“Real-time content allows our users to enhance experiences by digitally connecting to a global conversation as events unfold, and enables our users to engage with each other directly and instantly in the moment and on-the-go. The combination of our tools, technology and format enables our users to quickly create and distribute content globally in real time with 140 keystrokes or the flash of a photo, and the click of a button.

“The ease with which our users can create content combined with our broad reach results in users often receiving content faster than other forms of media. Additionally, because our platform allows any of our over 215 million MAUs(mobile active users) to contribute content, we have a vastly larger production capability than traditional media and news outlets.”

“For example, when US Airways Flight 1549 landed on the Hudson River near New York City, Twitter user Jānis Krūms (@jkrums) was among the first on the scene and tweeted his account of the situation for the world to see, all in real time.”

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Interview With the Tweeter

Krums says he didn’t get any advance notice that his tweet and photo would be used in Twitter’s IPO registration statement, and that he found out about it when he read the document.

It wasn’t too surprising, though, because Twitter officials had asked for permission to use the tweet and photo in the past for other media activities, Krums says.

“It’s very cool to be part of something like this, part of the history that is Twitter,” says Krums, who had just 170 Twitter followers before he tweeted the US Airways accident. “I am basically tied with that event forever.”

On the day of the Miracle on the Hudson, Krums was the last person to board a ferry from Manhattan to New Jersey, where his car was parked, he says.

“We pulled away from the dock and the captain comes on the loudspeaker and says there is a plane in front of us and we are going to rescue them,” Krums recalls. “We thought it would be a Cessna or something, and then we see a huge US Airways jet.”

“I tweeted it,” Krums recalls. “I didn’t think twice about it. I had 170 followers.”

Krums says the ferry was the first boat to arrive on the scene, and 30 US Airways passengers were put on board.

“When I got home, I think the first call I got was from MSNBC,” he says. “There was a huge media response.”

Today, Krums can relate to the Twitter IPO, sort of.

Krums is the co-founder of startup Opprtunity.com, which he describes as “a layer on top of LinkedIn” to make for faster and more relevant connections for professionals.

Like Twitter, Opprtunity.com is trying to raise funds, albeit in a more low-key manner.

Superstorm Sandy, Mars and Mount Everest

In addition to Krums’ Miracle on the Hudson tweet, and Superstorm Sandy-related tweets from the Hoboken and New York City mayors, and the American Red Cross, there are two additional travel-related tweets about Mars and Mount Everest that Twitter reproduced in its IPO statement:

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The Twitter registration statement has plenty of information about its advertising products and how they will develop, and all of that information is relevant to travel marketers.

But unlike Facebook’s IPO registration statement of February 1, 2012, which cited TripAdvisor as an example of a “deeply integrated social experience built around users and their friends,” Twitter’s registration statement doesn’t call out any travel brands for special recognition.

And, let’s get another thing out of the way: There’s no hint that Twitter plans on becoming an online travel agency, either.

Conspiracy theorists can rest easy, for now.

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Tags: ipo, twitter, us airways

Photo credit: Tweets about the Miracle on the Hudson and Superstorm Sandy appear in Twitter's IPO registration statement even before the table of contents. Twitter

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