Think of Twitter as the Alice Cooper of the social media giants.
Like the shock rocker, Twitter has a way of always surprising, inspiring, and sometimes scaring us. Think back to the first time you heard that these things called “tweets” were only 140 characters long. If you were anything like I was when I was a non-tweliever, you thought something like: “Wow. How pointless. What is the world coming to?”
Now that I’m a Twitter fiend, I have since removed my foot from my mouth and have fully come to “get” Twitter’s platform. However, I’m still in a state of perpetual amazement. Just this week, I discovered the following completely original uses by Twisters, my new name for people who use Twitter in somewhat twisted ways.
Here are 5 bizarre ways that people are using Twitter:
5. Tweeting entire stories. Starting yesterday, the New Yorker Fiction Department (@NYerFiction) began tweeting “Black Box,” a short story by Jennifer Egan (@egangoonsquad), the celebrated author of “A Visit from the Goon Squad.” How is this possible? Jennifer Egan, also a seasoned tweeter, structured each paragraph in 140 characters or less. Is this the future of reading and tweeting?
4. Predicting stock market trends. Researchers at the University of California discovered that Twitter predicts stock market trends better than any investment tactic out there. Although there are several factors at play, it pretty much comes down to how tweeters feel about certain companies. Amazingly, this computer model claims that it “can predict both the volume of trading and the value of a stock the next day.” Wow.
3. Buying beer. The rumors are true: you can officially buy your favorite Tweep a beer. A new web app called Tweet-a-Beer, links your PayPal and Twitter accounts so you can buy a round without that inconvenient being-in-person thing. Just how much beer can you send? Tweet-a-Beer works by sending increments of $5 to your Twitter friend’s PayPal account. And no closing time.
Read about the top 2 at The Ballpoint Revue where this was originally posted. Trust me, they are biz-to-the-arre! Comment there…please! 
I think a lot of Twitter Twisters are aliens, so does that render the last one moot? Seriously, though, some of these are very funny! Thanks for sharing them!
Just tweeted about it (no twister, promise!). Great post, lots of fun! Went over to your Ballpoint post and really had a laugh at the idea of a Reverend getting involved with pets…There’s no end to it I guess. So when are we all going to tweet our novels para by para?
Every tweets. It has become a way of life. But does anybody ever have time to read any of them?
Buying a friend a beer on twitter? I love techonology… and beer.
very cool, love the reference to alice cooper…..can’t wait to tweet a few beers out!
Just what we needed to be able to buy alcohol on line!!! Nothing like enabling alcoholism, wrong move twitter!! Tweeting a whole book, that’s a lot of tweets(lol). How does it make money?