Even More Tweetness

Just when you may have started to think about using Twitter, let me give you one more reason: it's an event organizing tool. What do you do to maintain order when you expect millions of people to show up at one location at one time? What do you do with ten thousand charter busses and ten times more people than there are spaces? If you're the DC security staff working Obama's inauguration, you'd use twitter.

And it's pretty brilliant. It seems to me, in my infinite shuffle through new media articles, that Twitter has really been pushed as a "microblogging" tool; meaning you basically update your status so people can look at you and what you're doing (as though they actually cared

The real power of a tool like Twitter comes from the creative organizational uses and the Obama security team understands this just like the Obama campaign team understood this. It streamlines communication lines. Instead of "trees", you simply have a single text getting rerouted not just to other security members (which access can be limited to) but also to regular foot and vehicle traffic looking to navigate the soon to be packed-out DC streets. Where's the traffic? Has there been a wreck? Are some lines not being used? Are there alternate routes? Twitter's design allows for all of this information to be sent out immediately through a single channel of communication. Frankly, it's brilliant.