23 April 2009 | Jonathan Villet

Twitter is one of those wonderful ideas that makes no sense on paper. What possible use could the world get out of mini-blogs limited to 140 characters? And yet, by now we all know someone who had no idea what Twitter was a few weeks ago and is now all over it, with a handful hundred followers and multiple posts per day. And the phenomenon that will be Twitter hasn’t even really started yet. Michael S. Malone points out that Twitter still has “only” less than 30 million users in the US:

That means we are still at the tail end of the early adopter phase for Twitter. The real social breakout – 100 million U.S. and 500 million world-wide users and all of the social transformations that will come in their train – has not yet occurred. Remember the frenzy surrounding eBay when just about everybody you know started buying and selling on it? It’s going to be like that for Twitter six months to a year from now.

Be that as it may, Twitter’s already made a splash in the “everyday” world of politics and commerce. Probably the most famous use of Twitter to date is President Obama’s announcement of his victory in the presidential elections this last November. The presidential tweeting didn’t stop there, of course. Check out this video chart of Twitter activity from the day of Obama’s inauguration.

Like most technology, however, Twitter is ideology-neutral. While Obama reduced his use of Twitter to get his message out, his political opponents have also embraced the social media darling. The Tea Party movement is using Twitter to organize and advertise their protests, share tips, and track media attention. One could almost describe Tea Party protests as flash mobs in slow motion.

People are also exploring the commercial possibilities of Twitter. Dell’s VP of Communities and Conversations, Bob Pearson, boasts 25,000 followers to his company’s 80 different Twitter accounts. Of course, it’s not just about attracting eyeballs. Mr. Pearson also claims to have moved more than $1 million in merchandise via Dell’s Home Outlet Twitter group. Meanwhile, Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, is personally leading his company’s Twitter strategy with 130,000 followers to his personal Twitter account.

It’s not all smooth sailing through the social media waters for corporate giants, however. Time Warner recently reaped a whirlwind of controversy and antagonism on Twitter when they experimented with bandwidth caps on their broadband internet service. The latest word indicates that the company has abandoned such plans for now.

And then there’s the bizarre case of Skittles. Embracing social media, they turned their home page into a Twitter portal, allowing their fans to post whatever they liked. At first, it seemed to be a real marketing coup. Eventually, however, it turned into something more like Lord of the Flies as the seedy underbelly of the ‘net made its presence felt. The Twitter feed was buried. Now, before you can even get to the website, you have to input your age in a form and you’re warned “SKITTLES® isn’t responsible for what other people post and say on these sites. Click the box below to acknowledge that you know SKITTLES® isn’t responsible for that stuff.”

Which brings us to the still-unfolding drama of Domino’s Pizza. Recently, a video popped up on the web showing reportedly unhygienic hijinks in one of their stores. Attempts to deal with the problem quietly were swamped by the reaction on Twitter and other social media channels. Domino’s current strategy is to take the PR fight directly to Twitter, opening their own account. The jury is still out on Domino’s, but the verdict seems pretty clear on the potential of Twitter.

Photo Credit Incase Designs