Check out the article I wrote for Rhythm Interactive’s Blog-A-Rhythm.
As Craig mentioned in our January 2009 issue of The Source , one of the latest trends on the rise is the Micro-Blogging platform called Twitter . Micro-Blogging is a much more real-time way to convey to your “followers” what you may be doing at a given moment. This is much like setting your current status on your Facebook or MySpace page, however Twitter is unique in the fact that this is the only function of your Twitter page. Also, Twitter requires that your updates be no longer than 140 characters — thereby ensuring that your followers can get updates at a single glance to find out what you may be doing or thinking. Into this mix add the ability to “re-tweet” an update posted by one of the people that you follow, so that your own followers can also benefit from a comment that you may have found intriguing or simply amusing. This has created a unique community where you may find “tweets” that vary from something as simple as “Getting a Coffee at Starbucks” to something much more profound.
This platform has quickly risen in popularity (Barack Obama used it extensively during his campaign – @BarackObama ). Even old-school media companies such as CNN (@CNNBrk ) and Reuters (@Reuters ) are starting to jump on board. So, the big question many companies are asking themselves is “How can this tool benefit me?” Popular business uses vary from using it like an RSS feed to let followers know when a new Blog or News article has been posted, or even when a new Product or Service has been added to their website. To something much more complex like keeping people interested in an Alternate Reality Game like the recent London Dead Drop put together by the folks at Adobe. By using Twitter, they could have allowed people all over the world to follow the progress of the game in real-time — even if they weren’t able to participate (i.e. stuck on a different continent.)
The original article is still preserved at archive.org