As a follow up to his recent column on belatedly introducing Twitter, a communication and social media vehicle that I've become infatuated with, David Pogue (the New York Times tech guru) shares the anecdotal results of an experiment he ran demonstrating the immediacy of Twitter.
Yesterday, I spoke at a conference in Las Vegas. The topic was Web 2.0, with all of its free-speech, global-collaboration ramifications. At one point, I figured that the best way to explain Twitter was to demonstrate it, live, on the big screen at the front of the ballroom.So I flipped out of PowerPoint and typed this to my Twitter followers: “I need a cure for hiccups… RIGHT NOW! Help?”
I hit Enter. I told the audience that we would start getting replies in 15 seconds, but it didn’t even take that long. Here are some of the replies that began scrolling up the screen:
* florian: Put a cold spoon on your back - that’s what my grandfather would do for hiccups.
* megs_pvd: Put your head between your knees and swallow hard.
* bethbellor: Packets of sugar.
* jfraga: BOOOOOOOOOOO! (How many of those did you get?)
[Answer: about 20.]
Read rest here.
You can follow my Twitter at twitter.com/mattrod.