Like elections, Twitter tends to hit you where you live. Who you follow and who keeps an eye on you becomes a virtual community that can easily spill over into the real world. Case in point: Yesterday, I was visiting at a friend’s house when the notification light on my phone started to blink. Rudely, I checked it to find a Twitter mention, which read:
The original tweet though, came from someone that I’ve never even met. @IncidentFeed is the Twitter account for IncidentFeed.com, a group of local scanner enthusiasts who monitor fire and police channels. The web site provides a live scanner stream and they tweet about any major incidents. The only reason that they know about me is because I was at our community pool last weekend when a couple of rescue vehicles went by and I tweeted them to ask if they knew what it was about. I got no response to that question but it must have stuck in somebody’s mind, because when the fire broke out, they thought I would want to know about it.
The best networks, online or off, are always in conversation with one another and looking for ways to help. By building and participating in networks, we broaden our scope of information, gaining the eyes and ears of every person who contributes. I guarantee that you’ll be surprised by the things you learn when you become part of the conversation, even if it’s the unwelcome news that your house might be burning down.
