Chris Thompson   Chris Thompson on the internet

The speed and power of Twitter has never been more evident to me than now, on the way back from work.

Who knew 140 characters could do so much? Well, I had seen the speed of it before: shocking news stories spread like wildfire on Twitter before any major news channel breaks them.

But Neil Gaiman just proved it all again. Neil — best-selling author of The Graveyard Book, Coraline, and American Gods (among numerous others) — has edited a book of short stories from all sorts of wonderful writers.

When he announced on Twitter that he would give away a number of copies to the first 50 to re-post his message, naturally, I re-posted it. Or re-tweeted it, as it’s known.

Unfortunately, so did hundreds of thousands of other people. I was not in the top 50: I could tell by how long it took to try and count my way to #1 (I gave up after a few seconds). But the line stretched on long after me, as well.

All this was in a matter of minutes. He posted it, I saw it a few minutes later, and within a few more minutes, the poor people in charge of sorting out who won what, and who to give what to, were bombarded by a storm of messages.

There is a definite power to Twitter. When you’re famous, anyway, and have over a million followers. It is seen when Mr Gaiman posts a link, and those waves of people click on it, and crash the website. But it is also seen in the way they help charities, or foundations, or people in need, if they are that way notified.

It’s like having your own army, in a way. On your phone. In your pocket.