Twitter is at the forefront of social media, offering a free micro-blogging service that allows users to send others text-based updates. As such an up and coming social media outlet, Talk was surprised when Twitter quietly ushered in its second anniversary in October without a “tweet” or media fanfare.
Twitter began as an in-house research and development project in March 2006 at Odeo, a San Francisco-based podcasting company. Odeo’s employees used the project to communicate internally but quickly saw its potential and launched it as a public product in October 2006.
As discussed on our blog before, some of the largest companies in the world have created social media departments that use Twitter to communicate with their patrons. Now, more unexpected organizations have started utilizing the social media outlet as well.
NASA has been known to provide updates on Space Shuttle missions and the International Space Station via Twitter. The Los Angeles Fire Department used Twitter updates during the 2007 California Wildfires in order to keep Los Angeles city residents, as well as the media, up to date on any vital alerts regarding the fires.
This social media outlet has led the way for other sites that rely on a strong network of community members rather than core technology. It has shown that small notifications can be extremely important while making a huge impact on everyday communication as well as on the bottom line.
