'Tweets' hit NZ streets on billboards

The social networking phenomenon Twitter has taken to the streets with New Zealand's first billboards displaying live "tweets".

The billboards use the same technology as sports scoreboards and digital road signs to display "tweets" - messages of 140 characters or less which are shared by Twitter users over mobile phones and the internet.

Directory service Yellow Pages developed the billboards to highlight the changing ways people access information.

The billboards display tweets from "Josh", who fronts a Yellow advertising campaign in which he must rely on the directory service in his quest to develop a yellow-tasting chocolate bar.

His tweets can be seen on billboards on Queen St and Sandringham Rd in Auckland, and Waterloo Quay in Wellington.

- NZPA