Seekaroo

Twitter Your Way to Freedom

December 24, 2007

Are you twittering your time away? Or Twittering your way to freedom?

Twitter – the messaging application – is taking the world by storm. So, what’s the big deal, you say? Instant Messaging is nothing new. It’s a way of connecting to friends, co-workers, family, or meeting new people. Popular applications include AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo, MSN, and others. Now, Twitter.com has come out to play and the world is using it to make a difference.

The San Francisco based company Twitter is owned by Obvious.com. This group of individuals’ mission is to create interesting things that matter to the world. Twitter is exactly that. It is an online application that stretches into that precious realm of becoming a medium for its users. It goes so far as to encourage users to separate themselves from their computers and go out in the world. And text about it.

Using mobile texting technology, a Twitter-er can log in and share with anyone who cares to follow what they are doing at any one point of time. A limit of 140 characters blocks the overly verbose from clogging up space. Such posts may have started with banal comments such as, “Yeah. Great choice of plaid shirt with those polka dot pants.” And have grown into using twitter to track the random tasks of everyday school or workday. Users post comments when they take breaks, go to lunch, get stuck in a ridiculous phone meeting, or are online playing solitaire. Be careful what you twitter about!

The good news is that you can see when you are being followed, and have the ability to make your posts private. All diligent Twitter-ers know that privatizing your posts almost defeats the purpose of this budding international community.

Innovative Twitter-ers can utilize guerilla marketing tactics to plant seeds on products. However, with the Public Timeline section refreshing every four minutes, it’s anyone’s guess how Twitter’s success can be measured as a marketing tool. Other users share the world’s tiniest recipes (a real feat – if you have ever tried to write a recipe in 140 characters or less!) The good news is, according to the terms of use, users own their own content. Chat strings can be copyrighted for usage in Blogs and print.

So how will the public make use of such a malleable medium? Twitter has already shown that its audience is willing to grow up when the need arises. With the confusion that abounded during the San Diego wildfires of 2007, Twitter users took things to another level. The scene was of confusion and panic. Twitter created a user-name to follow; suddenly, while news reports were sketchy at best, followers could track and lend tips to ease each other’s fears. This string of comments and notes passed through the smoke was well monitored and thorough.

Conversely, a recent earthquake in San Francisco led to a frenzy of “tweets” as users call them, capturing mostly the abject terror and then triumph of those who experience and find themselves actually enjoying the thrill ride of California living. While informational links were posted – leading to standard USGS quake data, the question arose. With the response given on Twitter for a standard small quake with no damage – will the infrastructure be able to hold up when the big one hits? (Californians all know this is a matter of when and not if).

Twitter makes the world a smaller place. Joining people of many countries, languages, and backgrounds in one online-village we have shown we can work together to help each other. Or just watch what we’re doing. Either way, I’ll be out there tweeting with the rest of them. Whether or not we’re Twittering our way to freedom or frittering time away remains to be seen.

David Culpepper | Filed Under Social Media