permanent daylight
the obsessions of Adam Findley

Twitter has only been around 3 short years, yet it has become as important to communication as the telephone. Now all you naysayers (I'm looking at you "The Trouble with Twitter" retweeters) may think that it's just another stupid internet fad destined to go the way of AOL, pets.com and MySpace. When I signed up for it I thought the same. I too went through the stupid tweet phase, thankfully never stooping so low as to tweet every meal (except when I'm at Bob's in San Francisco). Now it's so critical the US federal government asked Twitter to delay it's planned outage for upgrades.

You still think I'm ridiculous? How about some evidence:

1. It was a means of taking back a terrible interview at the South by Southwest Festival in 2008.
2. One word, 'Arrested,' freed a student imprisoned in Egypt for covering an anti-government demonstration.
3. It has given a unique voice to celebrities, such as Adam Savage of MythBusters where they can interact like human beings and not just like rock stars.
4. The picture of the airplane that landed in the Hudson that covered nearly every newspaper was taken with an iPhone and posted on Twitter.
5. Perhaps most important, it is one of the few means whereby Iranians' protesting voices can be heard despite the stifling of their government. Finally the people have a voice against the state-run media.

Twitter has brought new found freedom, while like all freedoms it still has it's consequences, I for one welcome it.