Mark Forscher

Twitter’s growth is impressive: according to Hitwise, the Hudson River plane crash recently drove Twitter’s “market share of visits” in the “Computers and Internet” category higher than Digg’s.

If you can see past the PR and Twitter hype, there are lots of great new examples of Twitter being used effectively as a service or tool. Below are three examples of Twitter put to good use:

1. Twestival, a global networked fundraiser, seeks to raise $500K for non-profit charity:water through meet ups in 100 cities across the world. Micro donations are made through TipJoy

2. A New York Times interactive graphic maps the “location and frequency of commonly used words in Super Bowl related messages” on Twitter. This graphic is deceptively simple because it manages to create a clear narrative over time of the intersection of the game’s highlights and the themes of fans’ reactions across the United States.

3. Dell uses Twitter as an exclusive marketing channel, apparently producing “$1 million in revenue over the past year and a half through sale alerts”.

Ok, so the last example isn’t exactly good in the “common good” sense. But the exclusive-deal-through-Twitter is a strong precedent for brands looking for revenue opportunities through social media services.

Do you have other examples of Twitter used effectively as a social service or tool?