The Tweetathon last thursday, hosted by Joel Comm and Dan Nickerson, was really inspirational. Not just because of what they did for Water Is Life, though that too is very inspirational, but because they were able to do it. So, lets take a look at how they were able to do this.
Well as it was a “Tweetathon” it makes sense to start at Twitter! What is Twitter? Well, Twitter is a social network but more specifically it is a micro-blogging website. This means we are able to send short messages (140 characters is the maximum) to anyone that is following our tweets. Sure, we now know what Twitter is… but how could it possibly be used to save thousands of children’s lives?
The answer is simple. They used their initiative!
It is commonly known that Twitter does not have many features that other Social Networks may have, but does that mean they are not able to use those features? Joel Comm and Dan Nickerson did not let this get in they way, they thought to use another platform at the same time!
UStream
UStream is a very useful website, as it allows live streaming of video! This is something I have not yet done myself, though I have watched many shows on it. Their team, including their technical people who do not get enough credit, made a website on Tweetathon2009.com which embedded the Ustream feed. This meant that they were able to create a wonderful website that even had twitter features built into it.
Tweeple
Tweeple is what the users of twitter are commonly called. You might be thinking, what do the users of Twitter have to do with such a powerful video? Well, think again! How could the event be publicised quickly? Ah, now you get it don’t you? Joel Comm and Dan Nickerson are very powerful people on twitter, because they have a lot of followers. Their followers have a lot of followers too. So it should have been obvious that to publitise an event like this all you need is people to “Re-Tweet”? Maybe now this has been done once, many people will start taking control of Twitter in a way that could perhaps help the world’s economy massively.
The power of Social Media can probably only be told by Joel Comm and Dan Nickerson as they, and their team, set it up and really used Social Media to the top of it’s potential. So if either of you are reading this, please comment!
Thank you for reading and make sure you have input by commenting or perhaps tweeting about it!
Shane
Before you comment, if you have not already read it please read How To Write A Comment, thanks! This is to prevent a lot of useless comments we have been getting.