Okay, so I’m not on Twitter yet but, against the odds, I’ve become intrigued. And I’m intrigued because I’ve decided to look beyond the silly, pointless “sharing-of-random-neural-firings” use of it that you often hear first about it (i.e., all the stuff that no one with anything even resembling a life would give a rat’s heiney about).

But those things sort of miss the point. And the smart marketers realize that. Think about when the telephone was first invented. Imagine if the first publicized uses of were, say, as a doorstop or a paperweight. I know, stupid, but that’s a bit like the way Twitter felt when it first debuted. But that’s changing, and we’re only starting to REALLY see the potential of this baby.

In the past few weeks, I’ve come across some very interesting stories involving Twitter. I shared one in an email last week (in publicizing the Social Media Success Summit 2009) about a fellow writer who, because of her familiarity with Twitter, was likely to be chosen by a Fortune 100 giant rolling out a new product, to cover the event, including Twittering about it daily for three weeks.

What started out as a $5K “maybe” just gelled last week into a $15+K green-lighted project. I have to imagine a company this big isn’t dropping cash like that just to chase a fad. They know that the people they want to reach are on Twitter. And here’s an article about others…

Then, heard from another friend asking advice. Seems a prominent organization at whose high-tech conference he spoke welshed on a deal he had with them, in writing. When he confronted them, both in person and in subsequent emails, their responses – each one nastier and more entrenched than the last – essentially boiled down to “TS. Take a hike.”

Until the day he Twittered offhandedly to his colleagues that he was contemplating “naming names” publicly… Suddenly, they contacted him with a totally different tone. They’re now in negotiations. Love it.

Finally, read about a woman having problems with her DSL. She goes to Twitter (after reading that her ISP had 8 FT employees assigned solely to monitoring Twitter), posts a message, and in one minute flat, she gets a Tweet back from the ISP. They assign a tech to her, who tells her that complaints they get through Twitter go right to the top and that he’ll stay on it till it’s solved. And he does.

As I see it, with Twitter, the operative question is this:

What’s the power and potential of a tool that almost organically connects many thousands of people to a point where, ultimately, little can happen in one place without the whole eventually knowing about it?

Ponder that. Viewed through that lens, it’s actually a pretty fascinating phenomenon. In the short term, it’s shaping up as a wonderful tool to ensure transparency, to keep entities honest and ethical where they once could behave badly, and with impunity. And given the short-and-sweet 140-character nature of the medium, it’s also becoming a way for companies and individuals, if they can master the effective writing side of it (are your ears perking up?), to relatively quickly influence opinions, trends, buying habits and who knows what else?

What are your thoughts on this?

Stretching your imagination, what do you think Twitter’s impact could ultimately be?

Any good Twitter stories?

How can we, as commercial freelancers, capitalize on this intriguing tool?

By the way, check out the Social Media Success Summit 2009. Enrollment has topped 730 so far! And until May 25th, you’ll save $100 off the $497 price – pretty darn reasonable for 11 sessions of quality content, nearly $400 worth of bonuses, access to recording/transcripts of ALL sessions, and interactive forum before, during and after the event. Details here.