IRREVERENT News

DUBLIN-Start up rioters in this country are torn between using BlackBerry or Twitter to propagate mayhem and destruction.

"To tweet or not to tweet, that's the question," read the press message from one rioting faction. "For our looting, BlackBerry Messenger wins every time!"

"Tweet you twat!" read a recent tweet from a rival gang of Irish rioters.

Yet the instant messaging preference of today's rioter, looter or erstwhile democratic revolutionary is no small matter, lest of all for the mega-corporations behind the technology. With tens of millions of dollars in advertising revenue at stake, which messaging system rioters choose could easily boost or bust each company's quarter.

"The rioting populace is more and more discriminating in their choice of social media," said Duncan MacLeod, and industry analyst who specializes in social media at the Washington think-tank of Dewey, Humphum & Howe. "In Egypt, for instance," MacLeod continued, "some 62% of upper and middle class revolutionaries preferred Twitter to spread the message of democratic reform, whereas only 15% of those middle to lower classed protesters did. In Greece, however, 47% of upper or middle class protesters actually preferred 'alternative' revolutionary messaging media, like Google Chat and Yahoo Messenger, but of those nearly 67% also broadcasted revolutionary goals over Twitter as well." Summing it all up, MacLeod concluded that "companies will ignore the preferences of the revolutionary market at their peril, financial or otherwise."

Undoubtedly, the debate will rage on, much like the riots these technologies help orchestrate.

Wall Street today richly rewarded both Twitter and BlackBerry's parent company Research In Motion, pushing shares of each up by double digits in brisk early morning trading. As news came in that some London rioters had begun switching to Twitter, however, traders favored the messaging giant and punished RIM, sending shares of the latter up in flames following a mid-afternoon fire sale.