I discovered a new nugget of value on Twitter today and wanted to share.  The WSDOT (Washington State Department of Transportation) is using twitter to tweet out traffic and transportation info for our state.  This is awesome!  I feel proud of my state for leveraging twitter because it's so efficient and immediate for quick bits of information such as traffic  news and alerts.  

What if the state tried to build a system from scratch that sent out traffic info to 2500+ people's cell phones or PDAs?  It's likely that it would be cumbersome, take years to develop, and cost gobs of money to promote.  Instead, they simply tweet the latest info for all those who have ears to hear it via twitter.  Way to go Evergreen State for leveraging this existing and free technology!

Check out the WSDOT Twitter feed here: http://twitter.com/wsdot

If you're wondering what the heck twitter is, here's a fun (and brief) little video by Commoncraft that should clear things up for you.