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"Twitchhiking" Tool For The Masses?

Submitted by John Geraci on 6 April 2009 - 5:49pm to Discussions.

A friend just pointed me to http://www.twitchhiker.com/ (see twitter feed at http://twitter.com/twitchhiker)

She says "Interesting and fun, but wouldn't happen in large scale."

I'm not so sure though. I think something like this (minus the free tix from airlines for publicity) could become a common way to get around in the future, with the right tool in place, accentuating the right things for people.

What do others think?

06 Apr20:06

more on twitchhiking

By John Geraci

More from that conversation:

Friend:

I could twitter now: pouring outside, anyone going from Central Square to Lexington in the next two hours?


and just maybe I'd get a yes. If it weren't raining, and if I didn't give it lots of time, it wouldn't work. If it were a sunny day, and if lots of people started to twitter their travel needs -- I can't tell waht would happen.

My reply:

okay, but imagine if instead of that going out just to the people who follow you on Twitter, it also went out to their friends, and their friends' friends, and their friends' friends' friends, so the pool was potentially thousands of people, all related to you by some degree of friendship. and then imagine if it only actually notified members of that potential pool who had registered a similar intent, so it didn't create noise for the people who weren't interested.

in other words, imagine if someone created a tool that used Twitter to search through thousands of people in your extended friend network to find just the right person to introduce you to - the person who is also going to Central Square in the next two hours.

it still might not work, but now you've tipped the odds a bit in favor of it actually working. then what you need is to spread the word and get enough people using the system that it will start to work more and more, and then finally enough people use it that working becomes the rule and not working becomes the exception (like finding the used thing you want on Craigslist).