The New York Times published an article, Putting Twitter’s World to Use, that had some interesting applications. For example, Corey Menscher, grad student at New York University, developed Kickbee, an elastic band with vibration sensors that his pregnant wife wore to alert Twitter each time baby kicked: I kicked Mommy at 08:52 PM on Fri, Jan 2!. Mr. Menscher is now considering taking the product to market.

There should be other uses of this. Ambient Devices, started before Twitter, provides glanceable technology to alert you to all kinds of things. This could be hooked to Twitter feeds if they have not already done it.

Here is another. At Henry Ford Hospital in Detriot, the docs twittered throughout an operation to remove a brain tumor from a 47-year-old man. Tweest included: A portion of the skull is being removed to allow access to the dura, the lining of the brain. The article said that, Medical residents and curious laymen following online asked the doctors what music they were listening to (Loreena McKennitt, a Celtic singer), whether the patient felt pain in the brain (no, just pressure) and how big the tumor was (the size of a golf ball). As is convention on Twitter, they tagged all their tweets with a keyword so anyone could search for the keyword and read the stream of posts.

Not sure I want the docs to twittered during my surgery. Better to focus on task as hand and I hope they are not crowdsourcing the next step. I understand the music part. I work better to music also. What music would like to be operated to? I would pick some nice slow instrumental jazz ballads over Hendryx.

There is also the Portland Twisitor Center, where you can ask where to find the best brunch spot or coffee house and receive instant official responses from the center and anyone else who might be following. True Massage and Wellness in San Francisco, twitters when masseuses have same-day openings and offers discounts. The spa is often fully booked within hours.

The article states that the most productive use of Twitter has been for businesses that want to better understand their customers, citing Dell and Starbucks. This is something I have written about this here as few times. (see for example,

What are the most innovative uses of twitter that you have seen? Here are the Top 21 Twitter Applications from Tech Crunch.  Twitpic is number one and TweetDeck is number two to no surprise. I use both of these but I am more interested in the unique ones. Here is a list of 275 twitter apps but most are around Twitter use itself and not applied outside the Twittersphere like the baby monitor.