I could never claim to be a twitter-box (a twitter chatterbox) or twitter-lebratory. I don’t have hoards of followers who hang on my every word, retweeting as they see fit. And I doubt any of my carefully crafted 140-character tweets have been turned into mantras. No, I’m certainly not one of those A list twitter-users (twits?) with a behind the scenes ghost-writer or a VIP seat at every tweet-up. But there is a part of the twitosphere that is filled with my tweets. And for me that is enough. Sometimes it’s nothing of particular interest to anyone. It’s just something I want to get off my chest or show people. And so I do.

So as far as twits go, I’m the new girl on the block. And yet, twitter has had an impact on my life. I don’t mean in the sense that I feel the need to unleash a daily torrent of tweets describing my breakfast and how I really need to get a haircut or some sleep. I’m a relatively disciplined twit who only has the occasional emotional tweet-splurge.

My Twitter moment is quite simple. It involves another twit, @nivcalderon. Now he belongs to the ranks of the retweetable twits. I guess you could call him one of the Twitter grandmasters. He and I met through Twitter at a time when I was thinking of moving to Israel. He proved to be the perfect sounding board: an Israeli with knowledge of Israeli media, something I would give my eyeteeth to be a part of.

A year later, I did move to Israel and Niv and I met in person. Still preoccupied and perhaps a little obsessed with getting a job in Israeli media, I explained to him how I’d had very little success doing so. And he listened. He made a few suggestions. And then offered to help. That’s when I had my Twitter moment.

See he used Twitter as a space to introduce me to his followers. Sent out 2 tweets: tweet 1 and tweet 2. He also uploaded a picture of me to twitpic. Within seconds of doing so I had at least 5 new people following me on Twitter. One of his followers started following me simply because I was a friend of his. You can’t ignore the power of Twitter, if you know how use it that is. And ok I didn’t get a job out of that Twitter experiment but I made some contacts that may come in handy.

These Twitter moments are certainly not unique to me though. Recently a California woman admitted via Twitter that she planned to commit suicide. Demi Moore picked up on this cry for help and retweeted the message to her many fan-followers. Because of Twitter, the suicide attempt was stopped. There is also the case of the journalist, James Earl Buck, who was arrested in Egypt while covering an anti-government protest. And with one simple tweet he was able to inform family, friends and all his follows of his predicament. Arrested – that’s all his tweet said. He was able to use this tweet to get in touch with that network of people and secure his freedom.

And then there are the recent protests in Moldova which are being flagged as the first Twitter revolution. The protests were in response to election results which many believed were rigged. Online social media applications, like Twitter, played a role in organising these protests. Moldovan-based Twitter users started using the tag (hashtag) #pman, which stands for Piata Marii Adunari Nationale, Chisinau’s central square in their messages. This was their cryptic way of organising a meeting place for the protesters. There were at least 10 000 protestors who showed up. Because of Twitter, you’re probably wondering?

There are some things that you need to consider. And maybe they’ll convince you that the hype around this Moldovan Twitter Revolution is just that … hype. For example , there are only 70 Twitter users who specify their location as Moldova. Some are suggesting that this ‘revolution’ was actually organised remotely by Moldovans abroad. Some also suggest that too much credit is given to Twitter as the mobilizing tool for the Chisinau central square is a natural place for people to gather and given the tense political climate Moldovans would need little incentive to join a protest.

So perhaps it wasn’t solely a Twitter-orchestrated revolution. But you can’t ignore the role played by Twitter. The organisers, regardless of where they were, did a good job flooding the twitosphere with tweets related to the protest giving it more coverage. Twitter also allowed for decentralized protests where you didn’t have to be in Moldova to play some role and make your voice heard.

On the level of both the personal and the political twitter is causing reverberations that extend behind the twitosphere. The interesting thing is that these reverberations are having an impact offline. And people are turning to what has been mocked as a blogging application for those with too much time and too few friends to affect change. To me, twitter revolutions are happening every day. Maybe not in as dramatic a form as the Moldovan flash mob. But I just think of the daily triumphs and achievements like the suicide which Twitter helped prevent … and well to me that’s a type of revolution. One in which the average person is given a front row seat to their world. No more passive consumption of media. Now you; me; everyone can have a say and play more of an active role in society. The biggest mistake you can make is to see Twitter as geek-hype. If nothing else, that’s a lesson we should all take away from Moldova.