Tweeterism » How People Use Twitter

Man Uses Twitter to Save Unconscious Woman on Street

tweeterism — Wed, 20 May 2009 09:10:39 +0000

An Atlanta city councilman has used Twitter to save the life of a woman who had a seizure on the street. Instead of calling 911 for medical assistance, Kwanza Hall sent out a twitter message because his phone battery was low and he didn’t want to be stuck on hold.

“Need a paramedic on corner of John Wesley Dobbs and Jackson st. Woman on the ground unconscious. Pls ReTweet,” was the message he sent out on the social networking Web site.

Within seconds, dozens of Hall’s Twitter followers sent out the message to their followers and several people called 911 to report the emergency. Paramedics arrived in time to rush the unconscious woman to Grady Memorial Hospital. Doctors said she had suffered a seizure.

Was this the right course of action? What if no one actually saw the tweet and called 9/11? That’s a risk but I guess it all worked out. Some people on the internet however had different opinions:

“What a a moron! By sending out a general plea for medical attention via Twitter he ultimately caused more people to dial 911 than needed. Which ties up the 911 system and costs someone else who’s in an emergency valuable time. Dialing 911 brings the Paramedics. Dispatch doesn’t have time to follow other forms of medium like Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, email, etc. How about invest in a better system and more people.”

“Using twitter did not help this woman one bit. It was the person who called who was the first to get through to 911 and dispatch the ambulance. The only thing this councilman did was send out a panic to numerous people online who then flooded 911.

Because of him, other people with real emergencies had to sit on hold.Why is the media proud of him? Hundreds of thousands of people are out of work and this idiot is on his blackberry using twitter all day long. If he thinks there is a problem with 911, he needs to find a solution instead of adding to the problem.”

Guess you can’t please everyone.

How to Use Twitter as a Money and Food Diary

tweeterism — Fri, 08 May 2009 11:48:30 +0000

The brevity of Twitter updates makes it an ideal tool to be used to jot down short notes, observations or reminders to yourself. While you can manually record what you eat or spend everyday, your tweets might be difficult to archive in a way which can be viewed with a single glance. That’s where websites like tweetwhatyoueat and tweetwhatyouspend come in. Both of them allow you record what you eat or spend on a daily basis and make it referenceable via an online interface.

Not only can you easily get statistics on what you’re spending, both services can operate under limits… for instance, if you tell yourself that you can only spend $50 a day and set that as a budget limit, tweetwhatyouspend will inform you when you are reaching that threshold so you won’t exceed it.

Pretty useful. Ideally, both services should be used while you are on-the-go/mobile so you can update even when you are outdoors but if you have a good memory, you can come back on, get online and manually update it. If you’re a mobile Twitter user, both sites will be terrific way to track what you eat or spend.

There’s also a social aspect to both sites, you can look at what other people are spending money on or eating and then share thoughts about that. If you’re not into that, you also have the option of keeping your activities private.

Here’s a screenshot of a user profile on tweetwhatyoueat along with the homepage of tweetwhatyouspend:

Researcher Writes a Tweet By Only Using His Mind

tweeterism — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 08:02:38 +0000

Adam Wilson, a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison managed to update his twitter account by using his mind only.

How did he do that? By strapping a brain-computer interface (BCI) to his head and connecting it to a computer. The electrodes detected signals caused by his thoughts:

Mr Wilson’s Twitter set-up contains an onscreen alphabet. The letters flash in turn, and when the letter that the user wants to type flashes, the system detects a spike in their brain activity, and selects that letter.

Justin Williams, an assistant professor who works with Mr Wilson, said: “If you’re looking at the ‘R’ on the screen and all the other letters are flashing, nothing happens. But when the ‘R’ flashes, your brain says, ‘Hey, wait a minute. Something’s different about what I was just paying attention to.’ And you see a momentary change in brain activity.”

Mr Wilson likened the process to writing a text message on a mobile phone. “You have to press a button four times to get the character you want,” he said of texting. “So this is kind of a slow process at first.”

This sort of brain messaging is ideal for systems like Twitter as Wilson explained:

“It’s difficult enough to be able to spell words, much less find an address book and select names. The overhead involved in these applications is just too much,” he said. “Twitter is very serendipitous. It handles all the things that we’ve been struggling to make easy for a patient to do.

It puts messages where people can find them. Let the world know how you’re doing, what you’re thinking, and they’ll find you. And that’s perfect for these patients and their families.”

Wilson will soon install their program in the homes of 10 people already outfitted with trial versions of the BCI2000. That system is not yet commercially available, but that day could come soon.

The Twittering Office Chair that Tweets When You Fart

tweeterism — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 07:28:19 +0000

Have too much time on your hands? Maybe you would want to integrate Twitter with a physical object in your environment. It’s not difficult to do as long as you have the right equipment. That’s what someone did when they decided to set up a Twitter account for an office chair and set it so that it tweets when the sitter farts:

The Twittering office chair “tweets” (posts a Twitter update) upon the detection of natural gas such as that produced by human flatulence. This is part of my commitment to accurately document and share my life as it happens.

I decided the first part of life that needed to be documented was my daily flatulence at work. I am not going to lie, I am a gassy individual. Since my flatulence is a part of life, it would be fraudulent of me to document life as it happens without documenting these occurrences.

In keeping with the process of non-interference in daily activity, I have created an office chair to both detect and Twitter my flatulence without having to bother me to update it myself.

You can read the horrible ordeal over at @officechair.

Combining Twitter With Your House Security System

tweeterism — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 22:57:58 +0000

Arduino is a pretty cool open-source electronic platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software: perfect for hoobyists and designers keen on building interactive environments. Even better when integrated with an alert system like Twitter.

We’ve seen quite a few implementations of Arduino and here’s one which integrated with with Twitter. A Twitter burgler alarm that notifies you when someone enters your house.

A burglar alarm that tweets when an intruder enters the house? What with the fashion for Twitter lately, I thought I’d give it a go, and this also gave me the excuse I’d been looking for to try out the Arduino hardware platform.

At the other end of the wireless connection, I have a Linux server with an Xbee USB module. A Python script running on the server reads the alarm status being received off the air by the Xbee module. If it sees that the Intruder alert signal is being asserted at the alarm panel, it generates notifications in the form of an SMS (via txtlocal.co.uk) and a Twitter status update.

Surgeons Are Using Twitter in the Operating Room

tweeterism — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 20:38:14 +0000

CNN reports that surgeons are using twitter in the the operating room. They’re posting real-time tweet updates about specific procedures for the curious, doctors and other medical students. Cool stuff. Is there any sort of real-world operation that cannot be transported onto text on Twitter?

Whether it’s new and cool or merely yicky, observers say there’s no question that more and more doctors — and patients — will be sharing the blow-by-blow of medical procedures on sites like Twitter and Facebook.

Dr. Craig Rogers, the lead surgeon in the Henry Ford surgery, said the impetus for his Twittering was to let people know that a tumor can be removed without taking the entire kidney.

“We’re trying to use this as a way to get the word out,” Rogers said. Observers say Twittering about a procedure is a natural outgrowth of the social networking media revolution.

Profiling the People Who Use Twitter

tweeterism — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 23:19:48 +0000

While Twitter users span a large demographic, a good amount of them fall within a similar pattern: young adults. According to research from Pew Internet, the biggest Twitter user group are adults from 25 to 34 with many of them being mobile savvy.

Nearly one in five (19%) online adults ages 18 and 24 have ever used Twitter and its ilk, as have 20% of online adults 25 to 34. Use of these services drops off steadily after age 35 with 10% of 35 to 44 year olds and 5% of 45 to 54 year olds using Twitter. The decline is even more stark among older internet users; 4% of 55-64 year olds and 2% of those 65 and older use Twitter.

Twitter users and status updaters are also a mobile bunch; as a group they are much more likely to be using wireless technologies — laptops, handhelds and cell phones — for internet access, or cell phones for text messaging.

When compared to users of other online social media websites like Facebook and Myspace, Twitter has a more moderately adult audience:

As noted above, Twitter users are overwhelmingly young. However, unlike the majority of other applications with a similarly large percentage of youth, Twitter use is not dominated by the youngest of young adults. Indeed, the median age of a Twitter user is 31. In comparison, the median age of a MySpace user is 27, Facebook user is 26 and LinkedIn user is 40.

You can read the full report here (PDF).

Twitter Can Help You Track the Skies

tweeterism — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 04:07:00 +0000

Here’s another cool use of Twitter. Orbiting Frog has created several Twitter feeds that use data to determine when the International Space Station (ISS) and Hubble will be visible over your part of the sky. When the time approaches for them to move over your city, you will get a 30 – 45 minutes tweet beforehand so you can go out and check it out. Tweet alerts will also only show up when the weather is good enough.

Right now, not all cities are covered but you can always contact the author via email or twitter to make a request. Basically, this method treats Twitter as an alert system.. giving you around the clock information on specific changes to your environment (in this case.. the appearance of huge objects in space over your part of the sky).

Freestyle Travelling: Using Twitter as a Tourist Tool

tweeterism — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 21:10:00 +0000

We know all the value of Twitter when seeking recommendations for specific products or feedback. It’s invaluable to get comments from people of all walks of life, especially when its all arriving in real time. It’s very useful when you’re unfamiliar with what you’re talking about and need more personal info from people you trust. The cool thing is that your Twitter posse is a virtual collection of friends that are accessible anytime, anyplace.. as long as you have an internet/mobile connection.

So why not bring them travelling? Last week, Benji Lanyado, a Guardian writer decided to do an experiment on the extent to which Twitter can replace your travel guide or tip book.

At some point over the next few weeks, I’m going to Paris. I’m not going to plan much. Rather, I’m going to leave it to the tweetosphere. When we run the Twitrip, we’ll let you know … and then we’ll live blog it as we go, with all your tweeted tips and suggestions live and welcome. It may well start with “Right, I’m at the Gare du Nord … where should I go?” And after we’ve road-tested the system, we’re hoping to open it up to guest Twitrippers.

Benji wrote another post, this time including his Twitter updates into the column. During the Paris trip, he will be regularly updating his location along with pictures. Other followers will then send him tips on what to do while tagging them with #TwiTrip.

This kinda reminds me of that other guy who was using Twitter to hitchike for charity. I have to say that its a great idea, although there are some basic requirements to make it an actual success. First of all, not everyone is on Twitter all the time so to get a reasonable amount of travel suggestions/tips, you will need to have a good amount of people following you.

It may also result in decision paralysis if you do get far too many suggestions to handle. What I like about it is the idea of letting other people influence your social choices in a new environment. It may lead to unexpected experiences, which is terrific when you’re travelling. That and the incredible speed and interactiveness of new information. Sure beats a Frommers Guide book anyday!

Maybe the next time you travel, you could try something similar?

Using Twitter as an Archive for Old Diaries

tweeterism — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 20:23:15 +0000

Here is a fascinating use of Twitter. David Griner discovered a diary by his great-aunt from 1937-1941 and decided to create a Twitter account (@Genny_Spencer) to post the daily diary entries. It’s cool to see the new protocol that is Twitter being used as a method to archive pre-Internet era information. Would be great to see more people pursuing something similar.