WELLINGTON - Social networking site Twitter revealed its power today, when it helped swiftly track down the owner of a camera found bouncing along the Desert Road.

Rowan Simpson was driving along central North Island road yesterday when the camera fell off the roof of a car in front of him.

"Unfortunately we didn't see which one, and anyway, by the time we stopped and picked it up they were long gone," Mr Simpson posted on his Twitter account.

He published a photo off the camera, a group shot, on a website under the title "Do you know these people?"

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Within 26 minutes of sending the message, he had a hit.

"Hi Rowan. Small world. The guy on the far right is John Wesley-Smith", a reader called Tarik messaged.

Mr Wesley-Smith, a manager at Telecom, was stunned when NZPA rang him to tell him his camera had been found.

"I didn't know where and how I lost it. I wasn't expecting to get it back," he said.

He said he had been driving home from holiday when the camera disappeared.

It was "great" his snaps had been saved, he said.

He said he would contact Mr Simpson to arrange to get his camera back.

Mr Simpson said on his website he had wanted to test the claim that everyone in New Zealand was connected to everyone else by fewer than six degrees of separation.

- NZPA