twitter-artIf you think Twitter is just a way for American techno geeks to navel gaze, how mistaken you are.

Watching protesters in Tehran use Twitter and other social networking services to tap out messages and share photos of impromptu demonstrations has put that myth to bed, hopefully forever.

No less an auspicious news consumer than the American government is reading those micro-blogged messages as one way to stay informed on what’s happening on the ground in Iran following the country’s ostensibly marred presidential election.

In the past 24 hours, I’ve seen dramatic photos of protests featuring thousands of demonstrators swarming city squares and read dramatic messages from protesters, such as this one, written supposedly by a student chafing at Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s description of thousands of protesters who flooded the streets as dust.

“Ahmadinejad called us dust, we showed him a sandstorm.”

What this episode in Twitter’s evolution shows us again is that the social-networking sites like Twitter are revolutionary in nature. In the case of Iran, protesters have bypassed government controls, and the media, to tell their own stories, much the way savvy Twitter users have done in the aftermath of bombings and politcal arrests over the past two years.

For someone like me, a reporter at newspapers for nearly 19 years and an online journalist for the past 14 months, it is a development that induces both fascination and fear.

It’s fantastic that citizens can get their stories out, and that we may be looking at some intermittent phase that leads toward a more involved citizenry, not only in Iran, but here in U.S. At the same time, who verifies the truthfulness of these messages we’re reading from Tehran?

Also Twitter and their ilk hold out the possibility of sparking a potential army of government watchdogs. But couldn’t it just as easily lead to people reporting their latest sighting of Oprah or Kobe Bryant?

I was reminded of the subversive power of Twitter recently while reporting on a legislative hearing in Santa Fe.

I was the only reporter in the room when Stephen Flance, the chairman of the New Mexico Finance Authority, told state lawmakers that it was his understanding that the FBI phase of the federal investigation into pay-to-play allegations in the Richardson administration was over and now in the hands of officials in Washington, D.C.

It was the first time a government official had said something along those lines publicly, even though the rumors had been rampant for weeks.

I looked around at the room. Seeing no other reporters in the room I realized I had stumbled upon an “exclusive,” or a scoop.

I figured I had a couple of hours to write the story, and I felt pretty good sitting there typing on my laptop.

Ten minutes later, a colleague instant messaged me that state Rep. Brian Egolf, who was among the lawmakers listening to Flance’s presentation, had tweeted Flance’s comments.

Fewer than 100 people follow Egolf, but several are news reporters. About five minutes after I got the message about Egolf’s tweet, one of those reporters — Steve Terrell of the Santa Fe New Mexican — walked into the room.

He had read Egolf’s tweet.

The story was no longer just mine. I rushed to write the story and get it out. Two hours became 30 minutes.

After the meeting, I joked with Rep. Egolf about him beating me to the story. He apologized. I basically told him no harm, no foul.

But my experience taught me a lesson: It’s a brand new world, not only for governments such as Iran, but for reporters like me who now must compete with a new brand of citizen  journalist.

It’s a new world.