With a couple hundred million users across the globe sending out tweets throughout the day, Twitter is certainly a formidable channel for effective communication. This social networking site is not just for teenagers or celebrities tweeting about their daily activities. The power of Twitter as an effective marketing tool has been realized by many entrepreneurs, who are currently using Twitter to aid in growing their businesses. Bearing in mind that it costs very little to promote a product on Twitter, small businesses have in recent years embraced this tool for boosting their internet marketing activities.
However, not everyone gets access to this useful form of social media. In some parts of the world, the internet is censored by the government and residents are unable to get access to Twitter. This is quite unfortunate because for many people, Twitter in one of the only places where they can get their voices heard.
Counties known for their notoriety in internet censorship include:
- China
- North Korea and
- Iran
Still, some internet users in such countries have been able to device strategies to avoid internet censorship.
The good news is, now there’s a means through which people in those countries can access Twitter on their smartphones.
FireTweet app gives Android smartphone users without internet access an opportunity to experience Twitter just like everyone else.
Lantern a company which makes a computer application giving desktop internet access to people with blocked or censored access is responsible for creating FireTweet. Lantern is the brainchild of one of the pioneers of the peer-to-peer (p2p) file sharing network LimeWire, Adam Fisk
Like Limewire, Lantern utilizes a comparable P2P system, which connects a censored user with another person whose web is not blocked. Lantern’s objective is to guarantee that the individuals who need complete internet access get it. Furthermore, Fisk says, it meets expectations day and night sidestepping national online blockers.
“Our goal is just access,” Fisk was heard saying.
For the last two years Fisk and his group at Lantern have been building out their technology to make it possible for anyone to have access to the internet, no matter the regime. FireTweet is now bringing this to mobile.
According to Fisk, FireTweet was first devised at a hackathon in Spain. “It started out as an experiment,” he said. He went on: “The idea is that FireTweet uses all of Lantern’s existing infrastructure to get around censors.”
Now the app has officially launched and Fisk and his team get to see if it really works. He said that he hopes to see hundreds of thousands of users adopt the app. But first he needs to get the word out. This will admittedly be a difficult task.
To do that, the people at Lantern are teaming up with various media companies to let Iranian and Chinese citizens know about the program. They will also be doing other online campaigns to try and get their app more widely known.
Fisk adds that iOS will be the next frontier. How soon? According to developer, it’ll likely be “later this year sometime.”
what do you think of Frisk’s invention? Use the comments section below to voice your opinion.
