Twitter this Twitter that. Everyone loves Twitter and I really don't get it. It launched a year ago and Robert Scoble has been talking about Twitter since last November. He started with a post saying that he just started using it. Beofore you know it he's posting regular updates to his blog with how many friends and followers he has. It's like he's on crack. The age-defying John Edwards has a Twitter page. No, not the guy guy who wrote "Sinners in the Hands of Angry God"; that's Jonathan Edwards.

What is Twitter? If you have the time, watch the the seemingly drunken yet entertaining explanation by it's founder (below). Twitter is a really simple (in concept) social technology that asks the question "What are you doing?" Basically it's like the presence message in your IM client ("in a meeting") implemented as a Web 2.0 web service. You can update your Twitter from IM, text messaging, or your computer. Each status message is limited to 140 characters and your personalized Twitter page keeps a history of your messages so some are calling it microblogging.

The buzz is at full volume right now because Twitter won the Web Award at the South By Southwest (SXSW) conference last week. Their acceptance speech: "We'd like to thank you in 140 characters or less. And we just did!". Apparently all the techies at SXSW were running around Twittering each other and annoying the heck out of their friends who weren't at SXSW with the contstant updates.

Maybe I don't get it because it's so simple. Sometimes simple ideas seem dumb until you try them and then you get hooked. That's the way it was for me with text messaging years back. I'm not alone though. The guy quoted in this WSJ article says the same thing, "I didn't get it at first". And there's Loren Feldman in his video review describing his transition from "who cares?" to "I love it". I got an email from a friend of mine with the subject "Twitter?". He wrote:



I don't know. I guess I should try it before offering my opinion. I have a feeling that it's addictive but not valuable. What social behavior does it replicate? I wouldn't want my roommates or family to announce across the house what they're thinking or doing every few minutes. Ambient information is supposed to be, you know, ambient, not spelled out in a text message. It seems more like a newsreel of pointless information than a valuable social communication tool. I guess it depends on how you use it. I'll try it out and tell you what I think. For those of you who have tried it, what do you think of it?