I still remember how cold it was that day. I was in New York City for business meetings, running around, trying to stay warm. I got on the 3:30 p.m. ferry to New Jersey, sat down and pulled out my iPhone. Minutes later, the captain came over the intercom telling us that there was a plane in the Hudson River.
As the ferry inched toward the aircraft and approached the wing, I snapped the photo above and tweeted it to my 170 followers using TwitPic.
http://twitpic.com/135xa - There's a plane in the Hudson. I'm on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy.
— Jānis Krūms (@jkrums) January 15, 2009
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I only took one photo before giving my phone to one of the passengers we rescued. When it was returned, the first call came from MSNBC — the image I shared had gone viral. In fact, it crashed TwitPic.
It's been five years to the day since I took that photo, and I've learned so much about the platform on which I shared it.
No matter who you are, if you have a message that resonates with enough people you will get noticed. We've seen this multiple times, from serious events, from the death of Osama Bin Laden, to Stefanie Gordon's Shuttle photo. It's all about the message. It's a far change from when I was growing up in Soviet-occupied Latvia — this type of freedom was a dream that many did not think would happen. Twitter has opened up opportunities for people to share what's important and for the world to see that message.
With sharing comes the dark side of protecting your content. People will use your content without attribution or compensation. If you have content that is valuable enough for people to use it, make sure you copyright it. Even if you are sharing it on Twitter or any other social network, it's still your content. Don't let someone else make money off of you. I had to learn this very quickly and actually had my photo copyrighted within a week.
Everything you say is public. So, be mindful about what you say about others or throwing around off-color jokes. If you aren't comfortable with it being printed on the front page of your hometown newspaper, don't tweet it. Your online persona is very important, and you can't take it back.
Twitter is still evolving. It started as a status update that was public. Since then it's morphed into so many other things for different users — a breaking news outlet, a gossip magazine, an educational platform, a second screen for live events. The choices are endless. And it will keep evolving as users see ways to make it work for them.
How much should we share? I've shared a lot of my life and, at some point, you start to think, Why am I doing this? You begin to resent being present, and instead think about how dinner will look on Instagram and what place I should check in to next to prove how cool I am. I've had to take breaks. I've had to remember the joy of being present with friends and family. Just put the phone away. Listen to your significant other. Actually talk to your mom without checking Facebook. The truly meaningful conversations happen offline.
Janis is CEO and cofounder of Opprtunity.com, a real-time professional discovery platform. He's also an adviser and investor for early tech startups.
Image: Jānis Krūms