My news radar has been tuned to "Twitter + PR" for some time now. As this blog has maintained, Twitter is quickly being co-opted by forward thinking communications professionals everywhere.
It is only a matter of time before your client asks about this service. Why not get smart about it now, by perusing some of the related links in my recent posts? Better to be proactive than blindsided.
It is absolutely nothing short of amazing, the buzz this service is getting (I suppose I have added to the cacophony), and the speed at which an ecosystem is developing around it. I recently switched smart phone platforms and got a Blackberry, in part because one of my colleagues showed me his phone that was equipped with Twitterbery - an add-on application that integrates Twitter with the Blackberry (OK, yeah, I know, Twitter works with many if not virtually all cell phone devices and I am probably the last person in the universe to get a Blackberry - Twitterbery is an elegant implementation, though). A second reason for getting a BlackBerry - I got tired of watching the top of my wife's head, as she constantly sits hunched over the device deep in Blackberry Prayer mode.
There are similar services, and others which arguably do much more - e.g. FriendFeed - so why all the thunder for Twitter? Better memes, I suppose: the name, variants and experience are captivating.
Speaking of memes and variants on the word Twitter, one can't talk about Tweeting and revolution (I mean real Revolution, the blood and guts variety) in the same breath, and do this with a straight face, right?
Yet if it is not quite revolution - after all they are the Goliath in this case - I just learned that one nation, namely Israel is currently using Twitter as a war time communications tool.
Previously, I had observed that the Israelis are using some pretty advanced communications tactics in their latest confrontation with Hamas - using YouTube and blogs to bring their case to a global audience, for example. I opened up the NY Times on Sunday to also learn that the Israeli consulate had conducted a news conference on Twitter.
Please see this link to the story. The article included a partial transcript, and it is kind of surreal, the way it reads, as Twitter's 140 character limit mandates abbreviations, and the real-time nature of the event caused improvising and perhaps some errors / sloppiness. A quick read could easily be mistaken for the text messaging conversations your kids have, until you look closer and realize that the interchange is about matters of life and death. An excerpt follows:
backlotops: 1 side has to stop. Why continue what hasn't worked (mass arial/grnd retaliation)? Arab Peace Initiative?
israelconsulate: we R pro nego. crntly tlks r held w the PA + tlks on the 2 state soln. we talk only w/ ppl who accept R rt 2 live.
shahidkamal: Your nation has been disgraced on Twitter. This inverted Nuremberg Trial will not rescue your image.
israelconsulate: the point of this was to hear what ppl say and to share our POV with fellow twitters.
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