Episode Two - Twitter

[1]Online Tools for the 21st Century

[2]Wayne MacPhail

In the last episode I told you about Meebo, a convenient way wrest your productivity back from the baying pack of instant messages programs yapping for your attention? Well, I'm about to throw a fresh attention-sucking hellhound at you. It's called Twitter (http://twitter.com [8]). Twitter is like an away message bitten by an radioactive text message spider and given super communication powers. What superpowers? You can watch as other twitter-ers all over the world type up 140 characters answering the question "What are you doing right now?". And, you can answer the question yourself. You can type, like I just did, "About to record a podcast about Twitter" or as a couple of recent Twitters did: "Waiting for her to come on MSN. Will she?" or "enjoying a slice of apple pie. The rain has stopped." Now, you're probably asking yourself, "Why would anyone waste their time like that?" That's what I thought, but I've been watching the twitter stream trickling at the side of my consciousness and screen for the past week and it's oddly engaging and addictive. It's a weird collective haiku of in-the-moment confessions. It's like being an angel in "Wings of Desire" with all the world's prayers pouring into your ears. Well, okay, prayers and lists of what people had for breakfast. You can see a public stream of all the twitter postings worldwide, or create a friends list and watch just that. And, those friends can even include news twitters from the bbc, google or from groups covering events like the Oscars or Sundance. If you're on a Mac, you can use Twitterific, a beautiful little app that makes watching and tossing stuff into the twitter stream a quick and elegant experience. So, twitter, at twitter.com, a way of watching the world unfold, 140 characters at a time.

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