Maybe it’s because I am getting old and don’t understand some of the new popular social networking sites but I have to say that I really didn’t get twitter when it first came out. Sure, I could see the usefulness for instant marketing and communication but most posts I was reading seemed fairly self important in nature. “So and so is eating here”, “going for a bike ride”. I mean…does anyone really care what the average person is doing at every stinking moment of the day. I quickly started to sour on twitter all together.

That all changed with the recent news coming from Iran. I have been reading in amazement as tweets continue to come in describing what would have otherwise been the silenced voice of a people demanding freedom. I never thought of twitter as an element of social change but it’s importance is now solidified in my mind. It reminds me how important it is for a society to have some sort of forum for uncensored self expression.

A couple of  years ago I purchased the book Design of Dissent by Milton Glaser. Seeing this “twitter revolution” reminded me of the concepts from that book. It dawned on me that the usefulness of twitter is that it serves as the purpose of posters, flyers, graffiti, and the like. It’s the public forum of the digital age. Only instead of just a few people who happen to see a poster or flyer…literally the entire world can get a message in no time. If only a few messages get out of these censored states they can spread like wild fire. Very exciting stuff.

This entry was posted Friday, June 26th, 2009 at 1:07 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.