Jack Dorsey, the founder and chairman of Twitter, sees no reason why Iraqis cannot join the growing chorus of global "tweets" appearing on computers and cell phones worldwide every day. "We've always been focused on making sure that the lowest common denominator, the weakest technology, still has a voice," said Dorsey, who was in Baghdad this week with a delegation of high-tech executives at the invitation of the State Department. Cellphone-carrying Iraqis, Dorsey said, could utilize Twitter applications on their current mobiles for a range of things, even without broadband Internet connections, which are still in short supply in Iraq. "In our case that's using Twitter through SMS [text-messaging]," Dorsey added. "What we've found in Iraq is that we have 85% penetration of the mobile market here." (Should the founders of Twitter be among the most influential people in the world? Vote for the TIME 100.)
What Dorsey means is that 85% of people in Iraq carry mobile phones, usually more than one. This is a new reality in a country where roughly six years ago cellphone were virtually nonexistent. For Dorsey and other tech executives visiting Baghdad, the merging of cell technology and the Internet looks like a potential leapfrog move in telecommunications for the country, much in the way cellphone networks lessen the need for traditional landline infrastructure. "We feel that there are some real opportunities here," said Jason Liebman, CEO and founder of Howcast, a website that offers how-to videos. (See the top 10 celebrity twitter feeds.)
Twitter, Bono, and Influence Operations
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