One of the more re-occurring bones of contention in the social media sphere is when Twitter will hit the mainstream. Some folks might want to get really picky as to what mainstream means and usually throw up the old grandma defense - hell I’ve even done that on occasion. In fact Jason over at webomatica recently had a well thought out post regarding how to determine if some Web 2.0 service has hit the mainstream.

As good as Jason’s post was I think there is one other way you can tell if something like Twitter has gone mainstream. For me a good sign is if and when critical communication services such as the police and fire departments begin to use the service to reach out to the general public in order to provide emergency and general information.

Sure it’s one thing to say that when they get mentioned by Letterman as part of his Top 10 or old media like CNN run stories related to the service that they are on the way to hitting the mainstream. I think though that when entities like fire and police departments begin to adopt the service that service has reached deep within bureaucracies typically resistant to new shiny things the tipping point surely has been reached.

It might only be a case of the mainstream dipping its toes in the world of social media tools like Twitter but if the list below of agencies using Twitter is an example the I would say that yes Twitter has entered the mainstream.

Agencies using Twitter

Franklin Police Department - Franklin Massachusetts
Austin Police Department - Austin Texas (protected updates)
Chandler Police Department - Chandler Arizona
SPGLU - Fire Department Grevenmacher Luxemburg

LA Fire Department - Los Angeles California (was the first fire department on Twitter)
CalFireNews - California Fire News

Rhode Island Government Online
US DHHS Office on Women’s Health
Massachusetts Republican Party
GobiernoUSA.gov - The Official Portal of the U.S. government in Spanish
UN Secretary-General
UtahHive - Utah State Library Digital Library Services Team and the community of publishers of government information
Bakersfield City - California
UnitedWaySTL - St. Louis, Missouri

BreakingNewsNY - Breaking News from New York City as it occurs

Conversation Tags: Twitter, social media, mainstream