Is Twitter the new Amber Alert?

I was surfing the web yesterday and came across these eye-catching tweets:

-- I'M CONFIDENT we can use Twitter to FIND THIS MAN! Those of U on cell phones can be on the lookout! PLZ RT!! #FindBOB

-- Please use the hashtag #FindBOB, and be on the lookout for this man or his car! His family is very worried!!

The missing man @KitCameo is referring to is violinist Robert Korda. Apparently, Korda is her friend's father.

After looking at Kit's Twitter page, you can quickly see that she has contacted nearly every celebrity on Twitter asking them to retweet her messages. Her tactic is sound. She only has 696 followers, but by contacting all the top Twitter users (e.g. Ashton Kutcher, Rainn Wilson, TheEllenShow, etc.), the tweets about Korda could reach millions of people in seconds.

I checked Kit's page again this morning and it appears Korda is still missing. And, interestingly enough, I don't see any news stories on Kit's effort. I mean, it's really quite amazing. She's a glass etching artist from Burbank, California; she's not a detective.

As new forms of social media emerge, I'm sure people will find uses for them that the developers never even imagined. I highly doubt it ever crossed the Twitter folks' minds that their frivolous "what are you doing?" premise would evolve into an army of millions trying to track down a missing person. But, it's really quite ingenious.

Kudos to Kit for her efforts. I'm sure she has started what will eventually become a new way to locate missing people. And if law enforcement officers all around the country aren't taking notes, well, shame on them.