Twitter Review

Oh Twitter. At first I thought you were just another fad, like AIM, MySpace and Facebook, that I would be forced to sign up for because everyone else was using it. But as it turns out, I'm the early adopter here - and I signed up because some other service used Twitter for fast & easy updates.

Twitter is like blogging, but you're limited to a certain number of characters per "post" - I think it's around 150. So you have to be concise. But you can update it from just about anywhere, thanks to built in functionality and plug-ins. You can send a "tweet" via text message, via e-mail, via the web interface, even via 3rd party tools for other applications. Which means if you're walking down the street and you see someone who looks a lot like Elvis walk into a costume shop, you can immediately send a "tweet" that says "Elvis just walked into Bob's Costumes on 5th Ave - and he's wearing that ugly cape!".

You can also send direct messages to people, which is why I originally signed up. Twitter allows me to update my virtual to-do list by directing messages to it. So I never forget that I need to pick something up after work, or that I filed that bill in the 3rd drawer of my desk.

You can choose to be as "interactive" as you want - others can read your tweets, you can read other's tweets, you can subscribe to the "cloud" that shows everything that's going on, or you can keep your list tiny.

It's easy to get carried away, but it's also easy to only use it when you need it.

I'm not sure this review accurately describes what Twitter is... but once you use it, you'll understand. It's awesome. And easier than blogging.