Some great uses of Twitter

Published on January 27, 2008

Somehow, I ended up at this post by a guy named Jared Madden. He talks about Presence Applications (PA) and how they are the new media and around to stay.
PA’s ‘bridge the gap’ between platforms and allow you to ’subscribe’ to a information source (be it a person or company).

So, PAs like Twitter and Jaiku allow you to use a cell phone, the web, a mini-app on your computer, or something else to subscribe to what (people) are presently doing. So, you can follow not just people, but also, oh, I don't know, what about fire departments?


This is amazing. I already follow a company, Woot.com, on Twitter so I can stay up to date with the great deals they offer. I follow a guy who is a tech job headhunter here in Utah, just in case ;). And I have my regular network of edutechers: educators that use technology and push for more technology integration in schools.

Imagine in the emergency services world, you call 911, and they can autosubscribe you to a specific twitter feed regarding your call. You could get live updates of where the ambulance or fire engine or police officer is.

Imagine a news outlet creating specific feeds for a particular developing story. I am sure this already exists to a certain extent, but I just don't know about it. Imagine notifying people of the election results in nearly real-time via Twitter.

There is a group that does a Twitter Story, called twittories where people contribute to stories in 140 character increments.

Basically, the world is open for new ways of communicating. Although it can be scary to imagine that, it is also very exciting.

Quick quote from @arthus on Twitter as I am writing this:
Actually, student implies there is a teacher and teacher implies that there is a student. Learner can be self-directed.