Influx

Clearly Twitter is a misunderstood tool, given the general slamming it’s been given by certain individuals who fail to understand the real benefit, seeing it as yet another tool for ego driven tech nerds who tell each other what they are up to every second of the day.

However, as Helen Walters points out in her piece in Business Week this morning, that the evidence over the last 24 hours proves this all wrong.

David Armano, the prolific blogger and Twitter user called on his network to donate money to a friend in need. In a matter of hours $11k was raised.

Over at CES, Robert Scoble’s bus broke down and he was in need of help. He summoned his Twitter followers to help out and got out of the jam.

Obviously, Twitter here is the conduit, but these individuals would have got no help if they hadn’t built up a dedicated army of followers. Clearly, Robert and David know a little bit about openness and transparency and what it takes to build a network.

This is clearly indicative of something big and it will be very interesting to see where it heads.

I wonder if brands have what it takes to make this kind of thing happen or do they need to empower personalities to act on their behalf to build these networks?

If you are interested in learning more about David’s friend in need, here you go.

Posted by Ed Cotton