Twitter Founder’s Aha Moment
The team at Silicon Valley Comes to Cambridge were asked about their favourite aha moments in the last few weeks. Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter said that amazing things were happening in India. “Follow the work of Professor Mitra. He installed a free computer in a wall in an Indian city. Within minutes some local kids came along and immediately started to use the computer to teach themselves English so that they could play games.”
Twitter has just completed a deal with AirTel in India. Stone’s view is that social media tools will increasingly be offered in lower tech modes such as SMS which are much more accessible in countries such as India with a vast market but one which is not necessarily rich in bandwidth.

Aside from the democratising of learning, Stone’s other aha moment was hearing about a guy who was sitting in a busy pub.  He tweeted his friends that it was too noisy was going in search of a quieter one. By the time the pub goer got to the inn of his choice, it had filled up – with all the tweeterers who had picked up the message and acted on it by heading for the quieter pub. The point Stone made was that the empowerment of consumers that social media tools such as Twitter can offer is both a huge challenge, and an opportunity for business.