While traveling through Tibet last August, I found Spinn Cafe — a small eatery down a back alley run by two Thai and Hong Kong bike fanatics. When the violence and riots erupted a few weeks ago, I of course sent mails to all my Lhasa contacts asking how things were and if they were OK. It turns out Kong from Spinn Cafe is running a Twitter stream giving a day-by-day frontline report of the status of the city.

The reports are brief. Constrained mainly by the 140 word limit on Twitter posts, they provide small but intimate insights into what's happening on the ground in a way I've yet to see or feel from any other new source. I suggest checking out their Twitter stream. I've been a huge opponent of Twitter ("Yes, just what I need — another online 'presence' to update!") since it came out but recently I'm beginning to see how much power this simple tool packs.