Yesterday evening I went deep into the heart of the City of London with the purpose of finding out a bit more about Twitter and watch the screening of a short documentary called Twittamentary made by Tan Siok Siok and hosted by Media 140 .  The film is all about Twitter and Twitter users, the serendipitous meetings and connectivity that occurs there, stories which demonstrate the sheer global power and impact that just one little Tweet can cause and how this Twitter community can help others less fortunate.   I was astounded and moved by this film.  A great initiative.   I have been using Twitter for a while now on and off but not with any regularity.   After viewing last night’s fascinating film however, I fully commit to using Twitter more frequently.

The name Twitter is not news to most I’m sure.  However, for the benefit of anyone reading this who is unaware of Twitter,  I give you here the definition of Twitter from Wikipedia “Twitter is an online social networking service and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters known as “tweets”".

What I loved about this film was the real life on the ground running story telling it provided across a whole range of different topics and people, it managed to inspire and enthral the audience and the stories ran one into the next effortlessly with a tickertape (is how I describe it) of the Twitter names of each person featured running up the screen as their story came up.  It worked well.

What in particular was I struck by?  Well of course we were reminded of that very famous news item in January 2009 of the US Airways plane going down over and into the Hudson River in New York.  Within seconds Janis Krums who happened to be on a ferry on the river at a great vantage point just at the right time got THE shot on his phone that went whizzing virally all over the world in seconds.  That photograph was everywhere on Twitterpic before the item had hit the news headlines.  And wouldn’t you know it,  Janis Krums had put on his list of goals he wanted to achieve for 2009  “Increase my Twitter followers by 1,000″.  That photo certainly helped him do that and here it is, thank you Janis Krums. 

My favourite story – the Dominos Pizza Effect.   Interactive Amy (Amy Korin) from Chicago had ordered 3 pizzas from Domino’s Pizza.  These arrived after a one hour delay and Amy was not a happy bunny.  On top of this protracted wait, one of the pizzas was not what had been ordered and so Amy Tweeted her dissatisfaction with Dominos.   Well, this Tweet was picked up fairly quickly by Ramon de Leon, Managing Partner of 7 Dominos Pizzas in Chicago and responsible for this cock up.  Ramon dealt with the matter pronto, he tweeted Amy, he sent her a video apology.   This video apology has been embedded more than 87,000 times and now 87,001 – here it is!    They say that the only way to put a social media fire out is with social media water and Ramon – you done good!  I bet you run a very successful business and when I come to Chicago I shall pop in for sure.

I don’t want to tell you too much more about the content from this film but to give you a flavour from the cast of thousands  it featured a porn star, a homeless lady, a trader who Tweets up to the second trading news from the New York Stock Exchange trading floor, a lady truck driver and her even more popular dog, a geek and cancer survivor, a comedian, a songwriter, an author, a travel journalist and Arianna Huffington.  The list goes on and on and so do all the compelling stories.  Twitter – so powerful and so immediate – you rock!