FIR finds a new use for Twitter

Posted on April 7, 2007 9:40 am by Shel Holtz | Instant Messaging | Podcasting | Social Networking

Kindle

As Neville and I began recording episode #229 of the Hobson and Holtz Report last Thursday, Neville put out a tweet on the FIR Twitter account: “About to start recording FIR #229. Do you have a comment for today’s show? Twitter it!”

Among the nearly 60 people who follow the FIR tweets, three took us up on the offer, providing real-time contributions to the podcast as we recorded it.

There’s nothing new about real-time audience involvement in an asynchronous podcast. Michael Butler of The Rock ‘n Roll Geek Show, for example, has a chat room where people can participate live. I understand Chris Pirillo does the same for his show. For these to work, listeners need to know when the show will be recorded so they can be standing by to participate. With Twitter, however,  anybody who happend sto be following tweets—via the Twitter interface, with text messages on their phones, or through an IM client like AIM—will learn that we’re recording whenever that might be (and it’s not always the same time) and be able to jump right in.

It’s an experiment, but an easy one to run. It continues to be interesting to see the various uses to which Twitter is put.