Presenting While The Audience Twitters

A batch of people in an audience tapping on their laptops can be disconcerting to the presenter looking at an ocean of head tops, and it is possible to assume a complete disengagement with the presentation by some of the people who might be checking their email, websurfing, or perhaps playing World of Warcraft (a personal confession may be in order that I have committed the first two sins - but not the third): in short, anything other than participating in the discussion.

On the other hand, those people might be deeply engaged with the talk, looking up references to phrases and concepts that you the presenter just mentioned but the listener may be unfamiliar with, or asking for clarification over IM or Twitter or Facebook Chat. In this way the listener can improve their comprehension of the talk without stopping the flow of the talk to ask that question, and with greater understanding may be emboldened to ask a different question. This article How to Present While People are Twittering by Olivia Mitchell discusses how you can involve the back channel of Twittering and fold that activity into your presentation, potentially improving the comprehension and information transfer for everyone concerned.

What other strategies and techniques do you have in addition to the ones in Olivia's article for tapping into the backchannel discussion and involving the electronic participants into the conversation?