Google and Twitter launch speak-to-tweet service for Egyptian protesters

The amazing events in Egypt have just shown us all the power of modern communication.

Twitter, Facebook and other social networks were alive – lobbying the Egyptian people to take to the streets to protest at the Mubarak regime. So what was the first thing that President Mubarak did first? He cut off access to the internet and therefore disabled social networks.

But such is the power of the new cyber world that a group of engineers from Google, Twitter and SayNow (which Google acquired last week) worked hard to build a speak-to-tweet service for the Egyptian protesters to circumnavigate the clampdown.

The service enables users to send tweets using a voice connection rather than the internet. Anyone can tweet by leaving a voicemail on one of three international phone numbers: +16504194196 or +390662207294 or +97316199855. Tweets sent using the service will automatically include the hashtag #egypt. People can also listen to the messages by dialing the above numbers, and by clicking on the links posted to @speak2tweet.

How the world has changed...

Peter Corder
Managing Director