At least what sold me on it:
Article about a kid who 'Twittered' his way out of a Middle Eastern jailHandy tool , eh? Here is an excerpt from the article:
"
(CNN) -- James Karl Buck helped free himself from an Egyptian jail with a one-word blog post from his cell phone.
James Karl Buck sent a message using Twitter which helped get him out of an Egyptian jail.
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Buck, a
graduate student from the University of California-Berkeley, was in
Mahalla, Egypt, covering an anti-government protest when he and his
translator, Mohammed Maree, were arrested April 10.
On his way
to the police station, Buck took out his cell phone and sent a message
to his friends and contacts using the micro-blogging site Twitter.
The message only had one word. "Arrested."
Within seconds, colleagues in the United States and his blogger-friends
in Egypt -- the same ones who had taught him the tool only a week
earlier -- were alerted that he was being held.
Twitter is a
social-networking blog site that allows users to send status updates,
or "tweets," from cell phones, instant messaging services and Facebook
in less than 140 characters.
Hossam el-Hamalawy, a Cairo-based blogger at UC-Berkeley, was one of the people who got word of Buck's arrest.
"At first I was worried about his safety," el-Hamalawy said.
Then, el-Hamalawy took to the Web and wrote regular updates in his own
blog to spread the information Buck was sending by Twitter. Nobody was
sure how long Buck would be able to communicate. 
See Buck describe what he saw and captured on film during the protests »
But Buck was able to send updates every couple of hours saying he was
still detained, he had spoken to the prosecutor, he still had not been
charged, and he was worried about Maree.
"Usually the first
thing the police go for is the detainees' cameras and cellular phones,"
el-Hamalawy said. "I'm surprised they left James with his phone."
Twitter is normally used to keep groups of people connected in less urgent situations. 
Watch how Twitter works »
But Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, said he and others knew that the
service could have wide-reaching effects early on, when the
San-Francisco, California-based company used it to communicate during
earthquakes.
Stone said that as the service got more popular,
they began to hear stories of people using Twitter during natural
disasters with a focus on activism and journalism.
Buck's urgent
message is proof of the value of Twitter, Stone said. Buck's entry set
off a chain of events that led to his college hiring a lawyer on his
behalf.
"James' case is particularly compelling to us because of
the simplicity of his message -- one word, 'arrested' -- and the speed
with which the whole scene played out," Stone said. "It highlights the
simplicity and value of a real-time communication network that follows
you wherever you go."
Initially, the Twitter message was a precaution -- something people could trace in case anything went wrong, Buck said.
"The most important thing on my mind was to let someone know where we
were so that there would be some record of it ... so we couldn't
[disappear]," Buck said. "As long as someone knew where we were, I felt
like they couldn't do their worst [to us] because someone, at some
point, would be checking in on them."
Buck began using Twitter
as a way to keep up in touch with the bloggers at the heart of his
project and the events going on in Egypt
that he intended to cover. Buck was working on a multimedia project on
Egypt's "new leftists and the blogosphere" as part of his master's
degree thesis.
Buck found out from a Twitter message that a
planned protest against rising food prices and decreasing wages in
Mahalla had been shut down by Egyptian authorities April 6.
The next day, tensions rose as family and friends of protesters who had
been detained took to the streets, eventually throwing Molotov
cocktails and setting tires on fire, he said.
On April 10, Buck returned to Mahalla, where protests continued.
"I was worried about getting arrested, so I made sure to stay at a
distance from the protest so there was no way I could be accused of
being part of it," Buck said. "Mohammed and I had a bad sense; it was
really tense."
When the men tried to escape, they were detained. That's when Buck thought of Twitter and sent out his message.
Buck and Maree were interrogated, released and then detained again by the same police officers.
"We are really worried that we are off the radar now," Buck said.
Eventually Buck was released, but Maree was transferred to another police station.
As he left the station, Buck reached into his pocket, as he did less than 24 hours earlier.
Another one-word blog entry said it all: "Free."
As happy as he was to be free, Buck said, his biggest frustration was
leaving behind the translator who helped protect him during the riots.
Although the Twitter message helped him find contacts to get out of
prison, he says it was more the power of the network he had as an
American that enabled him to be released so quickly.
"Mohammed
was sitting next to me," he said. "But he didn't have the network to
call. I tried to use my network to shield him until they tore us apart."
Twitter may not have been able to secure Maree's release, but Buck
hopes his initial reason for using Twitter will help find his missing
friend.
"It was my big hope that people would get [the message]
right away and at least put a thumbtack on the map as far as our
location," Buck said.
There has been no official confirmation regarding Maree's whereabouts.
Attiya Shakran, press counsel for the Egyptian Consulate in San Francisco, said Maree was released April 13.
Maree's brother Ahmed Maree said that he had not heard from his brother and that he believes he is still in jail.
Government officials in Egypt could neither confirm nor deny Maree's release, despite repeated requests for comment.
Buck is now using his story and
Twitter page as a way to rally people looking for answers about Maree's
status. He's gone as far as publishing the phone number of the press
counsel of the Egyptian Consulate in San Francisco and posting a
petition for Maree's release.
For Buck, the main story is no
longer about his quest for freedom from jail; it's a quest to find
answers and, eventually, find his"