Putting the boot in ... protesters brandish shoes threatening to "kick out"President Hosni Mubarak during a rally in Cairo's Tahrir Square.  Putting the boot in ... protesters brandish shoes threatening to "kick out"President Hosni Mubarak during a rally in Cairo's Tahrir Square. Photo: AFP/PATRICK BAZ

WITH the unruly sounds of protests in the background, the Egyptian man declared there were 50,000 demonstrators in the streets of Cairo.

''And the number is growing,'' he said, raising his voice to be heard on the recording.

Unedited, raw, anonymous and emotional, Egyptian voices are trickling out through a new service that evades attempts by the authorities to suppress them by cutting internet services.

The result is a story of a revolution unfolding in short bursts. Sometimes speaking for just several seconds, other times for more than a minute, the disembodied voices convey highly charged moments of excitement or calm declarations of what life is like in Egypt as it seeks to overturn the rule of its leader.

The messages rolled out as Egyptians seemed to be approaching a crucial point, with hundreds of thousands of people crammed into central Cairo on Tuesday as protests continued to demand the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.

Protesters have sought to use social media like Facebook and Twitter to muster momentum for attendance at demonstrations, even as the Egyptian authorities have shut off internet access.

''Urgent news,'' one caller to speak2tweet said. ''The police have changed to serve the people. We are very happy.''

As of Tuesday afternoon, the account had more than 8000 followers.

Not all of the callers were inside Egypt. On Tuesday the service began to identify the country from which each recorded message came.

While most were from Egypt, they included calls from Germany and the US in Arabic and English, as well as messages from Arabic speakers in the Netherlands and Turkey.

It was clear that support for the uprising in Egypt had crossed borders.

''I live in Jordan,'' said one man, urging on the demonstrators in a crackly recording. ''I want to congratulate Egyptians on their popular revolution.''

Another man, speaking for several seconds, introduced himself simply as an Egyptian engineer named Wael. Without a trace of irony in a message that could potentially be heard by millions, he voiced dismay over cuts to the internet.

But no internet connection is needed for speak2tweet, and in Egypt there was some phone service. Vodafone was working for text and voice on Tuesday, while AT&T BlackBerry users said MobiNil was working.

The New York Times

Source: http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/twitter-revolution-how-silent-majority-found-its-voice-20110202-1adw9.html