We’ve all been thinking a lot about how errant personal messages on Twitter can do a lot of damage. Weiner, the end of careers and everything.
Is it also possible that they could do good?
Consider the story of “The Kotel” on Twitter. It was started by a gent in Israel to take people’s prayers in the form of Tweets and deliver them to the Western Wall in Jerusalem.
I heard this story last week at the 140 Character Conference at the 92nd St Y. I absolutely loved the format of the event: speakers were given only 10 minutes, and this breakneck pace favored those who could tell brief, vital, condensed yarns on their unique take on the real-time web. Another great feature of the conference was variety: from Sesame Street to the head of AOL, there were tons of different types of personalities on display.
I certainly was taken by surprise by this idea of “Tweet your prayers” and the presentation of it. I’m not religious, but I found the creativity of this idea very appealing indeed. And Alon Nil framed it in a quite witty and self-deprecating way as the “anti-startup.”
But his testimonials of people who’s lives had been improved by participating in his service were moving, too, prompting my deep appreciation of the creativity that he has applied to Twitter.
I think there are a lot of lessons in his story of fledgling startups and small businesses.
Go to 1:27:00 to hear the story of The Kotel on Twitter.
Related: Check out my round-up post on the SocialFlow blog.
