Veteran Technology Journalist Leo Laporte observed yesterday that twitter “is the new place to go when you need to know.” He said it on twitter, of course.

He was suggesting twitter has become a premier medium for breaking news. And he’s right. People who “tweet” over this  three-year-old messaging software either send breaking news or what they are doing/thinking/planning at that moment.

Laporte made the comment based on the story that Google yesterday was reporting every web site as malware. I first saw it on  twitter. Hmmm, I’ll go to news.com for the full story including Google’s response. There it said, the Techcrunch blog broke the story. But twitter is I where saw it first and is where I am hearing more and more news first.

Twitter which has been the source of endless columns  examining its reason for being. But it is a great way get news instantly. Here’s another example…..I got a half dozen tweets within five minutes as the Illinois senate voted to impeach Blago a couple of days. Twitter told me what was happening blow by blow as it happened. The medium is fast, pervasive and concise (I’d post the string, but don’t have the tweets anymore..)

You still have to go to a traditional news source to get the full story, but twitter does a great job pointing the way with the breaking headline.

Twitter offers all kinds of stats about how traffic spiked during the inauguration or in past Super Bowls. Something bad or newsworthy happens, all those tweeters are going see and report on it first from their mobile devices. Well known digital maven Jason Calacanis has 50,571 followers on twitter, which equals the size of mid-size newspaper. He can’t be following that many people – it would crush his computer or mobile device! President Obama has 218,000 and our friend Leo has about 80,000! Twitter is a news force to be reckoned with.