eGovWatch: Twitter Samvad to facilitate communication between government and citizens

Twitter is essentially a messaging service and is hence the most mobile-optimised internet platform. And the micro-blogging site is leveraging this to promote Narendra Modi’s Digital India initiative by launching Twitter Samvad, a service that lets leaders and government agencies communicate with the people through tweets and SMS.

By Nandagopal Rajan

The initiative was launched by Modi and will initially have 16 partners including him.

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, who was in New Delhi for the launch, said the initiative was custom-built for the world’s largest democracy and will enable the citizens to be the first to know about new government initiatives and actions.

Costolo said Twitter’s business in India was just getting started. “We initially entered the market through resellers but have started building a local sales team,” he said. Twitter, he added, would continue to invest in language support to make the platform accessible to more people.

Costolo said the future for the platform appeared to be in native video and and live native broadcasting with no lag. He said there was an increasing realisation that Twitter needs to curate and organise content for users.

On Tuesday’s Supreme Court order quashing Section 66A of the IT Act, Costolo said he could make out there was a lot of local excitement on the ruling. “We have a great reputation as a company to defending and respecting user voices,” he said, adding that on the platform it had now become easier to moderate and harder for abusers.

Costolo said the future for the platform appeared to be in native video and live native broadcasting with no lag. He said there was an increasing realisation that Twitter needs to curate and organise content for users.

Here’s how Twitter Samvad will work for users:

●     Users will have to give a missed call to each of the numbers listed above to follow each of their Twitter accounts. For example, for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the number is 011 3006 3006.

●     Immediately after placing the missed call, users will start to receive a curated set of Tweets throughout the day keeping them in touch with leaders and government agencies.

●     In case of emergency or urgent public announcements, account owners (leaders, government agencies, disaster management cell) can instantly send an update on a given situation to all registered users.