On 9/11 anniversary, Twitter users remember #whereiwas

|
Charles Dharapak/AP
Taps is played as President Obama and the First Lady stand with White House staff members after a moment of silence marking the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on Friday.

The messages are powerful and poignant: 140-character remembrances of where people were when they learned of the terror attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

As President Obama and his wife observed a moment of silence at the White House, many took to the microblogging site to share messages of hope, solidarity, and respect, leading 9/11-related terms to claim nearly all of Twitter's top trending topics. Hashtags also sprung up, one of the most popular of which was "#whereiwas."

Students remember being at school:

Heard rumors, then got to Physics class where the teacher had set up a t.v. I sketched the towers as the clips aired #whereiwas (@rotatingworld)
Senior year of high school. Getting ready for a homecoming week pepfest. Instead we all watched the tv in silence & fear (@anitalynns)
Mr. Stoutz's 10th grade Algebra II class, fourth seat in the last row by the window. (@xanderbecket)
Walked into Art Class and saw it on TV. I asked what movie we were watching..."Real life" someone replied. (@seebabcock)

And businesspeople talk about going in to work:

At my first job. Got to work and all desks were empty. Everyone was huddled into one office watching the towers on TV. (@emilyyolks)
From my office I could see the plume of smoke from the Pentagon I had just passed . and fighter jets. I panicked. My boss worked. (@meitweet)
Saw it all from my office windows in midtown. walked downtown as far as i could. i remember it was very quiet down there. (@petersng)
Getting ready for work, heard it on the radio. Went in to the office, not thinking that it was 6 blocks from the White House. (@kathwertheim)

Share your memories in the comments, and on Twitter, where we're @CSMHorizonsBlog.

[Editor's note: The original version of this article said Twitter could handle 160 characters per message. We bet they could, but they choose to stick to 140.] 

––

Apple tells Rhapsody: Welcome to the iPhone club

Apple approved the Rhapsody iPhone app, a streaming music subscription service with a $15 monthly fee. Last month, people wondered if the submitted Rhapsody app would pass the iTunes AppStore approval process, especially since the Google Voice app failed to make it through to the next approval round (and even sparked an investigation by the FCC).


You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
QR Code to On 9/11 anniversary, Twitter users remember #whereiwas
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/Horizons/2009/0911/on-911-anniversary-twitter-users-remember-whereiwas
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe