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Archives for the 'Uses' Category
Control your lights with Twitter
The official Twitter blog points us to a hack by Justin Wickett (@jwickett) that allows a user to turn their home’s lights on and off by sending a text message to Twitter. Here’s a video demonstration:
Other Twitter-connected devices include the Botanicalls Twitter, a sensor you can add to your plants that will send a tweet if they need water.
Press release distribution service for Twitter, seriously
Journalism.co.uk has launched a new service to distribute press releases to mobile devises via Twitter. Seriously. The service aims to “target journalists and bloggers on the move by sending alerts to their mobile devices.” “Journalists can sign up to receive free SMS alerts to their mobile telephone whenever a press release relevant to their subject area is published on Journalism.co.uk.” Is it just us, or are journalists not really going to go for this? Read the story.
Another earthquake, another Twitter scoop
Once again, Twitter breaks news of an earthquake before the mainstream media. Last week it was the DC area tremor. This time it was the 7.8 magnitude quake that hit western China. According to Venture Beat: “Before it was on CNN, before MSNBC, before the BBC, even before the USGS (the United States Geological Survey, which handles earthquake data) had the information, Twitter was on it. … While the mainstream media scrambled to put up their ‘breaking news’ headlines, on Twitter we had pictures, maps, videos all being sent in real-time.” Read the story.
Help write a BusinessWeek article with your tweets
Here’s an interesting use of Twitter: Stephen Baker (@stevebaker) at BusinessWeek is asking readers to help him write an article about Twitter one tweet at a time. He explains: “The idea of writing in this format is to turn Twitter into something of an editorial wiki. I’ll write a 140-letter chunk and wait an hour. Meanwhile, people can correct my chunks or write what they think should be the next one. Maybe some of those chunks will supplant my own. Eventually, I’m hoping, we’ll publish the whole thing as a core story that spouts all sorts of Twittery arms and legs—each one a sign of a direction it could have taken. In fact, maybe some of those legs can turn into other, parallel stories.” Contributors are tagging their tweets with #bwstory for easy aggregation. Read the story.
Twittering during campus lockdown
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the University of Richmond went on lockdown yesterday “following reports of a gunman on the campus. As the audience sat in a dark, locked room awaiting their fates, hoping and praying that tragedy wouldn’t befall another Virginia university, they began communicating and comforting each other via Twitter.”
Said Prof. Jim Groom (@jimgroom): “For those thinking about a means to manage a crisis, I would put Twitter, or an application like it at the top of the list. It proved invaluable today for all sorts of reasons, and it made all the other means of connecting with others and collecting information dreadfully inadequate.” Read the story.
Twitter breaks news of DC-area earthquake
Reports of yesterday’s small-scale earthquake near Washington, DC, first appeared on Twitter, Reuters reports. “At about 1:37 pm, software developer Dave Winer asked the Twitterverse: ‘Explosion in Falls Church, VA?’ … A flurry of posts, or ‘tweets,’ followed, as users reported rumbles as far away as Alexandria.” Local media reported the rumbling as possible blasting at nearby Ft. Belvoir 60 minutes after Winer’s initial Tweet, and confirmed it as a 1.8 magnitude earthquake 30 minutes after that. Read the story.
Bonus: John Borthwick captured the conversation in a screenshot of Summize.
Primary results, gas tracking on Twitter
For your consideration, two new Twitter services: First, The L.A. Times will send out Indiana and North Carolina primary results instantly via Twitter today, as well as election night coverage throughout the evening. Read the story.
Meanwhile, FuelFrog, a new application designed to help track their fuel consumption by letting people record stats on the web or via Twitter. After you fill up, you tweet “the miles since your last fill up, the price per gallon and how many gallons you put in.” FuelFrog will then “compile and trend information about your gas mileage, the amount you spend, and more.” Read the story.
Shatner sighting leads to JetBlue Twitter scare
Blogger Jonathan Fields (@jonathanfields) recounts that after he tweeted his sighting of William Shatner at the JetBlue terminal in NYC, he was immediately followed @jetblue on Twitter. This freaked him out and he tweeted same. Of course, JetBlue messaged him with an apology and an explanation and this led to an extensive an interesting exchange that details JetBlue’s corporate communications strategy on Twitter. Fields writes, “This level of conversation from a multi-billion dollar company was just too much to stomach.” But isn’t transparency and humanity exactly what we want more of from corporations? Read the story.
Twitter beats gov at emergency response
A new research study by University of Colorado computer science professor Leysia Palen and others suggests that Twitter and other social media tools are more effective than government systems at warning and informing the public about emergencies. “During the California fires, web users on sites including instant messaging forum Twitter kept friends and neighbours informed of their condition, minute by minute. … However, the authorities struggled to display the sufficient up-to-date information.” Read the story.
Virtual wine tastings on Twitter
TechCrunch reports on how members of Australia community wine site Project Vino get together for virtual wine tastings over Twitter. “The site sent three bottles of Kirrihill (South Australia) wine to 12 prominent Australian Twitter users, with the only obligation being to tweet their thoughts to Twitter at the designated times.”
They also live-streamed the event on Yahoo! Live. Read the story.
Chris Pirillo says Twitter replaces RSS
Speaking to some folks from the Demoines Tweetup, uberlifecaster Chris Pirillo explains how Twitter has supplanted RSS feeds for him. He says he no longer visits websites or subscribes to feeds and instead relies on the flood of information from Twitter.
Twitter Gossip is a daily round-up of the latest news and opinion about Twitter compiled by