When terrorists attacked London's transport system in 2005, the first images of what had happened did not come from the news cameras or the newspapers, but the people who actually lived through the ordeal themselves.
Pictures and videos from the cameras built into passengers mobile phones, soon after these pictures were being shown to the world on major news networks such as Sky News and CNN. Before long people from the US were posting online messages such as: "I am watching this on the news in the US, praying for you all".
This is just one of the many cases in recent history when men and women on the street have been able to provide valuable news content at lightning-quick speed.
This concept has been developed further by news companies worldwide, where correspondents and reporters in the field are being given smart phones with cameras to take photos and capture videos, coupled with the ability to upload these back to the TV stations for news broadcasts.
AfricaNews has done exactly this and is a fully interactive online news site. They have four reporters who produce articles, photos and videos of news reports entirely from their mobile phones. All they need are mobile phones with adequate features (GPRS and a camera at least), access to a cell tower and some credit.
The benefits of this approach are that often these news networks will get the details of breaking stories hours before the satellite vans arrive on the scene.
It's the obvious next step from eyewitness phone calls, and while in cases like the London bombings their recorded images were shown on network television, there are devices available that can stream the video from a camera phone live to the networks.
That is exactly what happened in New York when a small plane crashed into a building in 2006. A cameraman was filming nearby when the incident happened and in order to get there and film quickly he used his Treo Smart Phone, which streamed the video complete with his commentary to the news network he worked at and was shown live.
Mobile phone manufacturers are now recognizing this trend and including methods that everyday phone users can upload their own content on to the internet.
Manufacturer Sony Ericsson has a deal in place with blogging website, eBlogger so that users of their phones can upload photos to a blog instantly wherever they are. When they can access a computer they can add to this blog in other conventional ways such as written text too.
This allows mobile phone users who may be away to be able to upload photos to a blog for family and friends to view potentially miles away.
Some social networking sites such as Facebook also offer this service via MMS and can let users upload photos from their mobile phone on to the internet for others to see.
Although free, these services still cost users through data charges by mobile phone service providers. So if you intend to upload pictures and other media from your mobile phones then you should check with mobile phone operators about charges for data usage.
With over 600m camera phones in circulation, the potential coverage for newsworthy events is greater than ever. Many news channels and papers actively seek content from the public, sometimes offering payment for such items. As this is explored further it seems the world is no longer such a large place after all.
