Twitter: Above and Beyond
I sincerely feel as if I am beating a dead horse here and probably preaching to the choir in regards to the usefulness of the social networking tool known as Twitter. But after seeing this article in regards to how a UC Berkeley student was able to notify his fellow students of his arrest and them in turn notifying the proper authorities to help him get out I don’t think I can say it enough. Oh, did I mention? The guy was in Egypt. Being arrested for taking photographs of a noisy demonstration. And those authorities his friends notified? Oh little groups like the embassy in Egypt and UC Berkeley itself to which they were able to provide legal counsel to get him sprung.
The ease of use for what was referred to in the article as a ‘wire service’ was probably pretty incomprehensible just a decade ago. In addition to that it has much more real implications locally, today I found out about a meetup with a few locals and someone from Seattle that was in town just to sit and lunch and discuss whatever we felt like discussing. This has particular interest to me because I am legitimately thinking of moving to Seattle or Portland or San Francisco (Live in one of those cities? Follow me on Twitter!). And I just made friends with someone who lives in one of those cities. When using networks like Twitter you’ve got to go above and beyond, you’ve got to think of the possibilities of how it can affect you on a day to day basis and how it can affect you in times of crisis. So, I challenge you; If you haven’t signed up for Twitter yet, then do so. If you have already friend me up and then proceed to friend up someone in another city… You never know when they may come to yours or vice versa.
