An actual use for twitter
Last month this Article was posted titled Finally a use for twitter. The story by itself is pretty interesting, but unfortunately it didn’t highlight an actual use for twitter. Instead it was more of an interesting story about THE_REAL_SHAQ on twitter. I’m more of a football fan than a basketball fan, but I have to admit after reading that story I started following Shaq on twitter, and he’s made a fan of me.
That’s not what this article is about though. I’d like to discuss an *actual* use for twitter that I had last week.
At work my coffee mug is constantly leaving coffee rings on my desk, so I thought I’d grab some coasters so I can keep my workspace a little less grimy. Last Friday, my wife, my son, and I were out for our weekly dinner and I thought it would be a great time to grab some coasters. We were in the area of a Target so I ran in there to check out there selection. They had one pair of coasters that were pretty unappealing to me. I was a little surprised at their meager selection. Several questions ran through my mind, like: Are coasters out of style now? Did I some how miss the shift in styles and I’m just a product of the 80’s? (In fairness that one is probably true). Still wanting some coasters, I began to wonder where I could find some coasters?
At this point I thought why don’t I post this question on twitter and see if I get any ideas. So at 9:47 pm MST I posted this on twitter:
Anyone know where to find coasters? Target has one set that I don’t care for.
Within several minutes I had six separate replies with different stores to try. What followed was highly tailored, highly relevant interaction between me and several people worldwide on the various coasters carried at different stores.
The power of this interaction is that I could pose a question on some random topic and within minutes receive quality answers from people familiar with the problem all around the world. I’m not aware of another platform besides social media that gives you this ability.
While this could theoretically occur on Facebook or Myspace, the nature of Twitter itself is what created this interaction. As social media grows, our ability to pose these types of questions and received immediate and powerful responses will hopefully grow with it.
I’d like to thank all my new friends on twitter that helped me find my coasters.
You can see pictures of the coasters I found here.
If you want to see the interaction with me on Twitter you can look at my profile: NyxWulf