Twitter and users

Last week I tweeted: "I had a bizarre morning, lost keys and forgot my power adapter at the coffee shop, one of the laundry dryer machines did work, had to redo it," a few minutes later, I got this tweet from a user saying: " We can get you a new set of keys!"

There was also another company who tweeted me saying that they sold the best key leashes. These companies advertise their products through twitter, watching for key words and checking who tweets what, isn't that amazing?

Compare these tweets with the tweets that are being sent out from the Middle East, telling of how many people died in anti-government protests while government media denies them. It's quite ironic that on the other side of the world, people use twitter for their liberation from oppressive regimes while on this side of the world, people use twitter to advertise their products.

For one part of the world, twitter has become a powerful source of communication, spreading out their angers, organizing their protests, reporting about regime's brutality, whereas for another part, twitter still is being used as a source of communication, but also as a tool for marketing and celebrities.

For me personally, twitter is a source of getting update news from the Middle East, South Asia, Afghanistan and around the world. I use it as a micro-blogging tool to share links and comments related to those regions.

Happy Fifth Birthday Twitter!

Today, March 21, 2011 marks the fifth anniversary of the first tweet ever sent. PCWorld has counted five milestones from the past five years, two of them are the most important to me:
1. The role of Twitter in coverage of Iranian elections.
2. Twitter in Tunisia and Egypt which help protesters organizing their protests and finally we unexpectedly saw the demise of authoritarian regimes one after another.

Here is a fascinating video of some important figures telling why twitter is important to them.