The butterfly effect of Twitter : Make a small showcase in Brussels, end up overnight on Fox News

It sounds like a modern metaphor of the butterfly effect at the time of Twitter.

You showcase once, in Brussels, before a crowd of 200-250 Belgian people interested in web entrepreneurship. Four or five attendants fire a small range of tweets about your prototype. Almost 24 hours later, you end up on Fox News plus a bunch of US media. Then become worldwide famous…

That is basicaly what happened to a group of students and their professor from the University of Hasselt, in Belgium, a few days ago. The prototype they developped, largely for fun, Twoddler, is now, unexpectidly, an international curiosity.

A flap of wings in Brussels…

As mentioned in the Fox News footage, Twoddler is a Fisher Price board for very young children that is linked to a Twitter account. When a toddler touches a mirror or a button, he/she sends a pre-written message to his/her parents via Twitter. As simple as that.

Twoddler was presented on December 2nd in Brussels, at the Beta Group, an association of Belgian web entrepreneurs. Around 200 to 250 people attended the pitch hosted in an auditorium of the Université Libre de Bruxelles. Only five or six people in the audience tweeted about Twoddler that evening (see screenshot).

… can set off, the day after, a flood of articles in the US and beyond

During, 24 hours, nothing happened. But on December 4th, Twoddler rose suddenly on the Twitter radar screen. Mashable, the prestigious online media, wrote a post  entitled “The Baby Toy that Twitters“. Overnight, Twoddler became worldwide famous …

We asked Adam Ostrow, chief editor of Mashable and author of the post regarding Twoddler, how he did hear about the “Toy that twitters”.

“I think a reader just submitted a link to us and we thought it was neat, so we wrote about it ” answered Adam Ostrow, to us.

“We did nothing special, but talk at the Beta Group, in front of a Belgian audience…That’s the power of Twitter”

The word was spread. The following days, the most respected websites and medias told about Twoddler: CNET Asia, Wired, Engadget, GeekSugar.com, Torronto Start, Geek.com, momlogic.com, slipperybrick.com, voxy.co.nz, and more…

The cumulative readership of all those medias goes beyond the 10 millions… Not bad starting from an evening gathering in an auditorium of a Belgian university (altough with more than 200 people attending)….

Kris Luyten, the professor of the Hasselt University who supervises the Twoddler project, is still under the emotion :

We took no action whatsoever ourselves. We did not contact anyone, we merely gave a talk at the betagroup, and that is the source of every twoddler event (message, post, comment, mail) that followed. So, probably the tweets and posts from the betagroup members are responsible

I guess it is the combination of “something for twitter” and “something for toddlers” that started this unsolicited viral media campaign This combination makes it a news item perfectly suited for social networks to spread and support (…) [Maybe] is it the magic of Twitter ?

[Anyway] I think my students have a lot of fun seeing this all happen, certainly since we never ever expected this to happen at all

Twoddler: Twittering Toddlers from Bart Swennen on Vimeo.

Stories like the one of Twoddler pave the way of a new era, where no border or minimal size can prevent the best ideas to be covered and blossom.

“The efficiency gap between startups and companies managed in a traditional way is widening”

How to kill your intranet

Will a European blogosphere first arise within the community of European entrepreneurs ?

The precedent post about the reality of a European blogosphere on this website triggered a lot of reactions.

The words of Nicole Simon, German English-writing blogger, have hit.

“A European blogosphere remains and will remain a myth as far as local bloggers in Europe don’t look after a international audience. More precisely, as far as they produce content in their national idioms rather than in English, the most shared language among Europeans, it is an illusion to think an actual online European public opinion will ever take off”, can we sum up in a nutshell.

Nicole was attending the EventoBlog 2009 in Sevilla (the biggest event organised in the hispanic world regarding the web, and the second in Europa, according to some standards). She was invited with  other famous bloggers coming from Belgium (Robin Wauters, TechCrunch) or Italy (Luca Conti, Pandemia.info).

Like for Nicole, we asked Luca Conti his opinion about the reality or not of a European blogosphere (watch the video above).

“I don’t think we will see it coming ever, does he say. Culture and interests in our countries are too different and too singular”, he says.

Eurosphere vs European blogosphere ?

Julien Frisch, Eurosocialiste, Andreas Karsten, Joe Litobarski and some other reaction promptly to the statement of Nicole Simon, in the first post :

“No European blogosphere ? Are you kidding ? Every day, we write about Europe on our blogs. Look at BloggingPortal.eu, for instance, on which 488 blogs are now aggregated. Isn’t it the clue of the existence of a consistent European blogosphere ?”, all seem to say.

It is true that Brussels is growing more digital, today. The discussions around the European institutions are now taking place on blogs and social networks, thanks to energetic individuals and bloggers speaking up on the web 2.0.

However, the so called “Eurosphere” (community of bloggers speaking about European Union stuffs, mainly politics) is no synonym for a European blogosphere. The latter should be understood as the cloud of bloggers, writing about stuffs from their home country but looking for an European outreach.

A European blogosphere will arise from European conversations about day to day concrete issues

For my part, I think a European blogosphere will arise sooner or later.

The fathers of Europe used to say that Europe would be built on top of concrete projects (European Coal & Steel Community, Internal market, SIgne currency…). I think a European online public opinion will emerge from online discussions between European individuals, talking about concrete issues.

It happens already, sometimes, with topics like agriculture, altough I’m not sure the conversations occur digitaly at a European level.

But as far as people feel they experience the same problems and expectations, they will feel more tuned to each other. Then… they will talk, chat, comment, post or yell directly on the web, can we assume, and move the “agora” (I hate this word) online.

The Eventoblog in Sevilla (with a delagation of Belgian web startups, for instance, taking part) had that purpose. I was one of them.

In spite of many differences and roots, Belgian, Spaniards, Portuguese, German, British,… we all felt very European there. That is why I think a true European blogosphere could arise first within the community of Entrepreneurs. Squeezed in our national markets and looking after more European/International challenges, we will increasingly search for international contacts and conversation online.

Jean Monet or Robert Schuman would applaud…