Twittering Beyond the Box
Twitter has been a lot of fun to play with lately, but I’m trying to think beyond the personal community building applications of it. What I mean is that with so many people getting notices on their phones, in gTalk and on the web there are going to be people who use it in ways that no one has ever imagined.
Maybe it’s all the fresh air from the beautiful day here in Boston, but I was just wondering about this and came up with some ideas. Please share your ideas in the comments because I know I only thought up a few in the last few minutes.
- Politics
Who will be the first political candidate for 2008 who uses it to keep everyone updated on where they are and what they are up to. This could be huge. And as I’m writing this someone told me that John Edwards has an account, but having one and actually using it are two different things. - Storytelling
How come no one is telling a story yet? This could be almost anything. Sure, it forces the creativity with such a small number of characters to post, but it could become a whole new form. I’m betting the really good writers would view it as a new challenge - Celebrities
Does anyone remember when Zach Braff was blogging from the set of Garden State on his Blackberry? I do and I remember how cool it was to just get the feeling of being there. Twitter could open this up even more. How many rabid fans wouldn’t want to know all the little details about what their favorite people were up to? - Erotica
This fits right in with the storytelling idea, but I broke it out separately because there are obvious unique opportunities here. No, I’m not talking about Porn flooding in. I’m talking about true erotic or sexually orientated conversations that the voyeur in people could peer into naturally via a service like this. It’s ripe for the plucking so to speak. - News
I’ve seen the BBC and Google News already leveraging this but obviously there is more potential. Crucial that it be timely though. I’ve already seen delays in both of these and not sure why. Twitter is all about timely information about what is going on. - Sports
If the Miami Dolphins had a Twitter account for the latest news I’d be subscribed to it in a heart beat. Why can’t I subscribe to a March Madness one that just pushes out the final scores of all the games?
I know these are only a few, but they are the ones that popped into my head. I have a feeling I’ll pop more into the comments as they come to mind.
I also know that any of these could be seeded with marketing and pr information as well. My only advice to companies about doing this is to be very careful and be very selective on when, how and why you do this? If it turns into nothing but a channel of border line spam then no one will want to listen. This is true for any channel in new media.

