10/14/2009 10:08:00 AM From Tehran to Queen Anne, Twitter is king Community building with Twitter
Suzi LeVine Guest Column
Despite my tech savvy, I admit that I had not really fully digested the value of Twitter - until the recent power outage on the hill. I had tweeted a bunch - but really more as a push mechanism to share with people what I was doing.
The other night, after a loud explosion and a flash outside of my house- with a subsequent power outage across the whole neighborhood, I was pretty freaked out. Was it a gun shot? Was there a catastrophic explosion? What was it? I used my cell phone to get online and went to the local news stations' Web sites - but there was nothing.
I started to hear sirens. Should I be concerned? Then I remembered that, even in the media lockdown after the Iranian elections, there was immediate news getting out from Tehran via Twitter. If they can do it in Tehran, why not (or "Y Not") Queen Anne?!
I logged into Twitter and did a search on "Queen Anne power outage." Sure enough, within seconds, there were tweets sharing that three transformers had exploded and that there was a fire on Eighth West and Galer (only a block from my house).
Concerned about friends who live right around there, I was able to exchange tweets with people I had never met before to learn which house it was and that it was smoke, but that the people who lived there were fine.
In addition to the sheer information value, I thought it was very interesting to see that...
1) ...the top immediate tweeting was being done by representatives from King5 and KiroTV - but their Web sites weren't updating accordingly. In an age when traditional media outlets are trying to figure out how to survive, this new medium is pushing everyone to innovate - even the old guard. (Note: - QueenAnneView.com eventually kicked into gear with a lot of accurate and timely information, but initially was hamstrung because the power outage blocked Thea Chard, the woman who maintains the site, from getting online.)
2) ... people started to spontaneously build community - with comments like "I never knew so many people from Queen Anne were using twitter" and one very funny tweet suggesting there might be a baby boom because of the blackout.
Will this turn me into someone who tweets a ton or follows a lot of people's 140 character voyeuristic snapshots? Probably not. BUT - does this illustrate its incredible value and show how to navigate it?
Absolutely!
Note - the irony of this piece being in a newspaper is not lost on me.
