If you haven't taken a stroll through Twitter and the land of "tweets" (that's what they call messages), it's time. Today's election has the twitterati tweeting away about voting, lines at the polls, free donuts for those who vote and so forth. But let's take a different angle on what Twitter can do for you - provide parenting information. Today I did a test search on "diaper change" and came up with this gem of a tweet: "Even my son's diaper voted for change today."
Maybe you were thinking of going to a movie this weekend? Enter the name of the film and read everyone's short, very short reviews. As we get closer to the holidays, Twitter can be useful to find hard-to-locate toys of the moment. You could enter your city name and the item and if anyone found one, you can be sure they're boasting their good fortune on Twitter.
Want to try? Go to search.twitter.com and enter a short phrase you are interested in. Twitter's search engine will come back in less than a second with all the 140 character or less messages posted to the Twitter service that included that phrase. The top of the search page even lists the most common terms in use at the moment. It's a great way to see the zeitgeist at work.
I occasionally drop into Twitter's search to enter "Norton" to see if anyone needs product information or assistance. Everyone is appreciative of the replies, even if they were having problems with the product and feeling grouchy when they posted. We're not the only company playing around with Twitter. JetBlue, Zappos are a few of the companies who actively manage their own Twitter account. And in the vernacular of the site, you can "follow" them for free. After attending a youth marketing conference, I was invited to "follow" MC Hammer (yes, he of the "Can't Touch This" song and parachute pants!) His tweets today are full of optimism about the election.
For grins, I entered my zipcode to see if anyone had used it. Sure enough, there are a lot of restaurant reviews and mentions of meet-ups at my local coffee shop. I've heard of people using Twitter to find a babysitter for the evening since the short messages go immediately out via text message and Facebook updates as well as to the Twitter page of your followers. Here's an article David Sparks wrote at Mashable on Twitter's greatest moments. Of course, I first found the article because I follow David on Twitter and he tweeted the link. I love the story of a girl's first date with a guy that seemed to be going well until she found out he was twittering about her (negatively) everytime she left the table. Not mentioned in this article is perhaps my favorite Twitter story. There was a political protest in Egypt and a young man was arrested. The police didn't notice he had a cell phone in his pocket when they placed him in their police car to take to the station. En route, he furtively typed, "Arrested" via Twitter and alerted his friends to get him help much more quickly than if he had had to wait until he had permission to make a phone call.
Ready to join? Go to twitter.com and create an account. You might want to hurry. Another article claims that just as web addresses were "stolen" in the early days so the squatter could blackmail the rightful owner, some twitter names are getting snapped up. Then make sure you "follow" me by looking for "marianmerritt".