the essence of twitter

Having been reading a lot about social media, why its successful, (which im still not sure of) what it accomplishes, the absurd cases where two girls update their facebook status in an emergency opposed to dialing 911, i began to wonder what are the possible uses of such tools. Obviously there is just communication, creating weak social connections to people all over, a form of self mediation, advertising, publicity, etc. I ran into an article on Mashable about Twestivals. Twestivals are combinations of Tweetups and fundraisers. Tweetups are just meetings on twitter, where a lot of people gather to talk about issues or debate or as i imagine just let everyone know how they feel. The combination of these tweetups with fundraisers seems to have created something quite fascinating.

"The global initiative was born on January 8, 2009 with a single tweet asking cities to join together and hold their own Twestivals on February 12th to support charity: water. The response was overwhelming positive, with more than 200 cities and 1,000 volunteers all working together to bring in over $250,000 for the cause."

This to me was quite stunning, to see that this is the capacity of a tool like twitter, which upon first glance is just the friend feed on facebook, its microblogging, it seems like it has no substance. what followed after was also quite amazing.

"This time around, Twestival is localized. It still has the same international appeal, but each city is raising money for their own community causes."

This to me is whats beautiful. I am a full supporter of the phrase "Think global, act local" because what you do where you are can act as a catalyst for change anywhere else. We have a lot of problems that we are facing now, and many people wonder how exactly are we going to solve them. Are we entering the Great Depression of our time? Is there gonna be a world for our children to live in? How are cities gonna keep supporting the mass influx of people? Will NYC flood? What are we going to do come Peak Oil? There certainly isnt a lack of questions for us to ask, but in my opinion the problem becomes how do we begin to act on them. How can we begin to act locally, truly locally, in an increasingly digital and distant world.
This is when i come back to twitter. And not just twitter, but AIM, G chat, Blogging, Facebook, Digg and all the rest of the social media with which i am not familiar. What makes them successful?

Is it Brevity?

Is it the fact that we can stay anonymous?

Is it because the people are strangers?

Because they cant see my facial Expressions?

Because i can pretend to be someone that I'm not?

Because i can show people the face that i want them to see?

Because the internet makes people braver?

I believe that these tools and the myriad of things that they can accomplish are astounding, but i wonder how we can take these tools and bring them back into the analog world? Can i make a paper twitter? can my clothes have a barcode with which people can read my profile? can i carry a screen over my head that constantly tells people what im feeling? How can we begin to break down the social boundaries that are so prevalent in big cities and begin to act with the people who live next door to us, to bring about local change?