Something fascinating happened today. Not just an inauguration of a charismatic man who has overcome boundaries including race to become president, however inspiring that may be. Not just the inauguration of a man whose command of the network media is clever, revolutionary and participatory. Something else happened. Twitter became a backchannel for the inauguration. Often it performs this function at conferences such as SXSW and d.Construct.

I’m not trying to suggest for a moment that it was the time at which Twitter went mainstream. It’s still early adopter, however today was in my view fascinating. It was a day in which friends, colleagues, people I admire but have never met, people from near and far joined in a conversation. I felt I was watching with them, right next to me, and that we were talking, yet the words we were saying weren’t interfering with the words Barack Hussein Obama, they were merely amplifying them and contextualising them. Emphasis on some phrases, especially those about curiosity, non-believers, trust in government, had almost an immediate response like a digital round of applause.

I’m still taking it in to be honest, it was a beautiful participatory event. David Cushman summed it up well.

I’ve collected images of some of my favourite messages, partly as a way of archiving today so I can talk to my son about it. It feels like that sort of moment in so many ways.

and perhaps my favourite of all