As soon as something newsworthy (or not in some cases) takes place, Twitter will have covered it. One of its 200 million users will have tweeted about it. And then it begins. The retweets, the unanswered questions, the conversations, the hash tags and the arguments over opinion. It doesn't take long before the item is trending. But just as quickly as it all started, the trend can be gone. New events will have taken place and something else will be the topic for discussion.

Where am I going with this you might ask?

Well, Twitter recently announced improvements to its search capabilities that could have a huge impact on breaking news. Twitter knows what terms and topics are popular but it hasn't previously known what they mean - this is something its algorithms alone can't answer and so Twitter has come up with a solution. It's built in a 'real-time human computation' engine to help identify search queries as soon as they're trending and make sense of them.

Twitter firstly monitors what search queries are currently most popular. This could be anything - we've all seen the ridiculous things that can trend on Twitter (NO JOKE: Justin Bieber is trending as I type. Give me strength). Then when a new popular search query is identified it is sent to Twitter's human evaluators who are asked a number of questions about the query - their job is to make the trending topic more relevant to readers. After an evaluator responds to the query with additional insight, information is pushed out so that the next time a user searches the query this information is utilised with relevant ads, tweets and topical news. This will help piece the query together and provide a more relevant and up-to-date story of the trending subject.

What does this mean?

It means that Twitter could potentially have the upper hand on breaking news stories. I am increasingly turning to Twitter to find out the latest on celebrity gossip. The items that appear from a Google search can be outdated; whereas I know I'll find the most up to date information on Twitter. The only issue I have with Twitter is if the insight is trustworthy. I know if I read an article on The Times or The Telegraph I can take the information and know that it's come from a trustworthy source. However, Twitter's new search capabilities will make search queries more relevant and easier to determine how truthful the information is.

What are your thoughts? Do you turn to Twitter to search for news?

@beccakennett

This pic was brought to my attention on twitter. It had been retweeted several times, from what I could tell - so I can't attest to its authenticity.

But I don't mind that, and I hope you don't either. Because not only is it funny, it's extremely plausible.

We've all seen strange filler pieces in newspapers, especially local ones where the pressure to fill pages with local news can lead to some interesting inclusions.

In this case, it was obviously a slow news day. Amen to that!

Sean