More companies are understanding the importance of Twitter:

[BuzzNumbers]

Companies like Starbucks, Whole Foods and Dell can see what their customers are thinking as they use a product, and the companies can adapt their marketing accordingly.

Last week in Moldova, protesters used Twitter as a rallying tool while outsiders peered at their tweets to help them understand what was happening in that little-known country.

And over the weekend, Amazon.com learned how important it was to respond to the Twitter audience. After one author noticed that Amazon had reclassified books with gay and lesbian themes as "adult" and removed them from the main search and sales rankings, a protest broke out on blogs and Twitter. The company felt compelled to respond despite the Easter holiday, initially saying the problem was due to a "glitch in our system" but later blaming a "ham-fisted cataloging error" that affected more than 57,000 books dealing with health and sex."

And stories about Twitter such as the one above are popular with the twitterati: "The New York Times , like many news outlets, has been writing a lot about Twitter lately. In part because it's an interesting, fast-growing company making a lot of news. And also, no doubt, because it has a built-in audience -- Twitter itself."


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