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The problem, of course, is that this experiment is a big change to the way Twitter has always worked. Part of what makes Twitter great is that the timeline is relatively unobstructed. You see tweets from individuals you choose to follow and the tweets they choose to retweet. It's not like Facebook, where you also get information about every like, comment or recent game activity.

He FCC said text-to-911 should not replace calling 911, and serve only as a complement to the existing service. "Today’s action will make text-to-911 more uniformly available and keeps pace with how Americans communicate," the FCC said in a statement. "More than one hundred 911 call centers serving portions of 16 states and two entire states (Vermont and Maine) are now accepting emergency texts, and there are already reports of lives saved."

The organization didn't say if location-based data will be used to trace text messages, and didn't address if the inability to ask immediate follow-up questions (which, depending on the situation, might be done more quickly on the phone) could complicate matters.