Amber Mac

Wow.  Do I ever wish that I knew about this article last night.  You see, I was out to dinner with two girlfriends (Jenna and Erika) and they asked me what the little Twitter update on my blog is all about (see bottom left - What Am I Doing).  I tried to describe the power of Twitter, a site where anyone can post what he or she is doing right now in 140 characters or less (via the web, text msg, etc.), but the best example I had in my back pocket was describing how I once needed to find the founder of a web start-up for a client/friend I'm working with in SF and my kind followers sent me his email address in minutes.

But, now, this Cali student who got arrested while covering an anti-government protest in Egypt takes top prize for using Twitter to its full potential.  Pasted below is a long blurb from the CNN story, one of many examples of the power of Twitter.

Buck, a graduate student from the University of California-Berkeley, was in Mahalla, Egypt, covering an anti-government protest when he and his translator, Mohammed Maree, were arrested April 10.

On his way to the police station, Buck took out his cell phone and sent a message to his friends and contacts using the micro-blogging site Twitter.

The message only had one word. "Arrested."

Within seconds, colleagues in the United States and his blogger-friends in Egypt -- the same ones who had taught him the tool only a week earlier -- were alerted that he was being held....

As he left the station, Buck reached into his pocket, as he did less than 24 hours earlier.

Another one-word blog entry said it all: "Free."

As happy as he was to be free, Buck said, his biggest frustration was leaving behind the translator who helped protect him during the riots.

Although the Twitter message helped him find contacts to get out of prison, he says it was more the power of the network he had as an American that enabled him to be released so quickly.

April 27th, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (6)