History in 140 words or less.

Tweet by tweet as people check on status of other, a lot of information is taken for disregard. However, laterly they are likely to be of considerable value to future historians. Many critics believe that they contain more observations, recorded at the same times by more people, than ever preserved in any medium before. Who knew your status would actually make history.

“Twitter is tens of millions of active users. There is no archive with tens of millions of diaries,” said Daniel J. Cohen, an associate professor of history at George Mason University and co-author of a 2006 book, “Digital History.” What’s more, he said, “Twitter is of the moment; it’s where people are the most honest.”

Last month, Twitter acknowledged that would donate its archive of public messages to the Library of Congress with supply it with continuous updates and statuses.
Before transferring it, the company will remove the messages of users who opted to designate their account “protected,” so that only people who obtain their explicit permission can follow them.
"A Twitter user can also elect to use a pseudonym and not share any personally identifying information. Twitter does not add identity tags that match its users to real people.
Each message is accompanied by some tidbits of supplemental information, like the number of followers that the author had at the time and how many users the author was following. While Mr. Cohen said it would be useful for a historian to know who the followers and the followed are, this information is not included in the Tweet itself.
But there’s nothing private about who follows whom among users of Twitter’s unprotected, public accounts. This information is displayed both at Twitter’s own site and in applications developed by third parties whom Twitter welcomes to tap its database". (NY TImes)

The library will embargo messages for six months after their original transmission. If that is not enough to put privacy issues to rest. However, many people on twitter arent aware of their privacy setting. This leaves a lot of room for information that is invalid and as Mr Cohen puts it "useless information"

Nonetheless Mr. Cohen encourages historians to find new tools and methods for mining the “staggeringly large historical record” of Tweets. This will require a different approach, he said, one that lets go of straightforward “anecdotal history.”

However, are we at that age when the quanity of history replace the quality and significance.