What is Twitter and How is it Changing Communication?

I am regularly asked about Twitter, but I'm never happy with how I'm able (or unable) to explain the platform and experience to a non-user. I've grown so fond of Twitter, I'd like to find a better way to share its benefits with others in a way that makes them understand its power and maybe even want to join.

I am impressed almost daily as I see new capabilities and potential in Twitter. Then I consider the larger social impacts and I see the paradigm shifts in mass communication it enables. I recently had one of these epiphanies and thought it may make a good illustration of Twitter's power. Hopefully this will help explain one of the benefits to the would-be-users out there.

I grew up in an urban area just south of the Baltimore City line. If you've seen photos of the Baltimore brick rowhomes and stoops, picture almost that, with a little bit more grass. It's the type of neighborhood where the block is the community unit.

As a kid, when an ambulance came to our neighborhood, the entire block came outside to see what happened. Not that anyone was happy to see an ambulance, but this was obviously an event, and everyone was naturally conce
ed and curious. There were always a few leaders in the pack who were eager to be the first in the know... much like Malcolm Gladwell's 'mavens' described in The Tipping Point. They'd be the ones to ask what was going on. They caught enough of the story from the family, paramedics, or with their own eyes to communicate on to the rest of the crowd - and they were eager to do so.

It was all a very accepted social platform for spreading information. A community member could be awoken by the lights, walk up to the crowd, find the maven quickly, and learn exactly what was happening within minutes. You didn't even have to ask any questions. If you stood close enough to the maven, you could learn what happened by listening to them talk to others. You didn't need a newspaper or a TV. This was the neighborhood. You got the news directly from the event.

Imagine being able to join this gathered neighborhood crowd from across the globe. This is Twitter (and Twitter is so much more).

Late one night a couple months back, I was up working. Just a few minutes after midnight my house let out some large creaking noises and some pictures on the wall rattled for a few seconds. I thought maybe it was a low flying jet, helicopter, or some heavy winds. None of these possibilities are too rare, so I didn't question anything. My home isn't exactly silent, but the more I re-played those 3 seconds in my head, the more something didn't seem quite right. By about 12:30am, I decided to search for some answers online.

I was already logged into Twitter, so I searched for the most recent tweets (a "tweet" is a post on Twitter) containing the words "earthquake" or "Maryland". Nothing was returned for Maryland, but I found a virtual crowd discussing some disturbances in Pennsylvania. Within a few seconds I found the maven. A Twitter member posted a message, complete with a link to the US Geological Survey website, and confirmed there was 3.3 magnitude earthquake centered about 50 miles north of me, near Lancaster, PA, at 12:03am. The rumble that I first dismissed as a low flying plane was actually the outer ring of a small earthquake. I found this info about 30 minutes after the earthquake, but less than a minute into my search. I stuck with the virtual crowd for a while... listening in, and even sharing some information with other new crowd members that were gathering and asking questions. Eventually the excitement died down a bit, as it does in all crowds after an event, so I left.

Granted this was small-potatoes news - a small earthquake (without major damage) in a small town. The point is that I found this information long before it was reported by any media agency. About an hour later a brief story about the quake appeared on the local newspaper website. The real news is that I was able to find out what happened from 50 miles away (although I could have been around the globe) by being plugged into to the crowd. Twitter allowed me to find the crowd, walk up to it, and join. It was just like I walked outside in the old neighborhood.

I'll admit that I was somewhat of a Twitter skeptic at first... not exactly clear on where the value in a service like it could be. However, the more I've gotten involved in the community, the more I realize how small it makes the world, and how immensely powerful it makes every person with a free Twitter account.

Your customers are Twitter users. Will they draw a crowd with what they may say about you?