“I think the idea of a Twitter revolution is very suspect,” says Gaurav Mishra, co-founder of 20:20 WebTech, a company that analyzes the effects of social media. “The amount of people who use these tools in Iran is very small and could not support protests that size.”

Mishra, who has organized social media activism campaigns for elections in India, says the main reason to use the tools is the attention it generates in the international media. Indeed, one of Twitter’s primary contributions in the Iranian elections has been to raise awareness of the issue among tech-savvy users outside the country.

“Political organizers use these tools because they create a multiplier effect—not only do you get a story about the campaign but then you also get a story about the fact they are using social-networking tools,” Mishra says. “So you get two stories for the price of one. The international media loves [the] social-networking world. But in India or in Iran, their use is still somewhat limited.”

— Gaurav Mishra in BusinessWeek