A strong advocate for Twitter, I find myself regularly defending the tool against the who-cares-what-i'm-eating-for-breakfast critique. Are there people who simply use Twitter to record the mundane aspects of their lives? Probably - but I don't follow any of them.
It's when Twitter records what its users find fascinating that it excels as a utility. Watching topics of interest bubble to the surface in real-time on tools like Ellerdale or Twitscoop is like watching the world think.
Or, at least those parts of the world using Twitter. These days, it's easier to know which parts of the world those are, since Twitter implemented a geolocation system. If you post to Twitter from a device that can recognize your location, Twitter captures that information. So not only can we see what the world is thinking, we can look inside the brains of particular cities.
For example, here is what New Orleans is thinking - right now, as you click that link. Zoom out and you can see other cities, countries and regions. Several days ago, Chile was discussing earthquakes; Hawaii, tsunamis. Every morning, you can watch the phrase "good morning" work its way across the English-speaking world.
In this video, each block is someone saying "good morning", getting gradually darker as it gets later in the day.
Following the earthquake in Haiti, Twitter played a vital role in finding the missing and sharing information. It's impossible not to consider how it could have impacted other disasters. Imagine that map of New Orleans on August 29, 2005, if the city's residents had access to the proper devices. Levee failures could be tracked as they happened; those isolated and trapped by the water would stand out, particularly as their situations were echoed around the world.
Twitter trumps CNN in the immediacy of its information. Sometimes, like when people are wishing each other a good morning, that speed is useless. But in some scenarios, it can save lives - and it will.
