Twitter, or microblogging in general, has massive potential in quickly and efficiently dispersing important information. In fact, the recent earthquake in China was discovered by Tweeters a full half hour before any of the mainstream American news channels or websites picked it up.

Corporate Tweeting has met with mixed results. Notably, big bad Comcast has set up a pretty amazing Twitter campaign, responding to just about anybody who utters the word “comcast” on Twitter, with something helpful or at the very least consoling. And it makes a lot of sense, because Twitter users by nature spread word of mouth and are tech-savvy. More importantly, companies can monitor Twitter if something bad is going down and get right on it.

Some companies, like Yahoo, appear to be doing nothing but sharing unusual news stories. Other companies, like Google, Apple, and Microsoft, have bought their Twitter names but haven’t Tweeted a thing.

But the United States government is on top of things. An article by Eric Krangel of Silicon Alley Insider reveals how the government if effectively using Twitter to advise the public on important updates. For example, @CSIState alerts travelers of problems in specific countries. Many of the tweets are just fun facts, but when something serious comes through (like with Bolivia last month), they let you know. For the frequent traveler, this is not only useful but a topic for conversation.

Krangel’s article has many other such examples, so take a look.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 11th, 2008 at 7:52 pmand is filed under Social Media, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.