Twitter: What are YOU doing?!

I thought I should perhaps tell you a little something about Twitter because until very recently I had never heard of it. Apparently taking America by storm, this site allows you to make short updates (text length minus your 13 character user name) by accessing the site, GoogleChat or text messages, all to answer the key question 'What are you doing?'. You can opt to only allow your friends see your updates, and if you don't choose this option then anyone can opt to 'follow' you, which essentially means they can choose to be instant messaged or texted your updates. Now in my opinion the texting thing is slightly scary and stalker-like, as if you are publicly updating then some random in Brazil could be being texted the fact that you are 'just leaving the house' BUT then again like many of these networking sites you can only be stalked by how much information you give. It would be sensible for example to not be updating with 'in house all on my own, forgot to lock the doors, have lots of expensive electrical equipment'.

The major advantage of the site is being able to blog quickly, and it does make you consider what you write much more as you have to be informative and amusing in a minimum number of characters, particularly if you are posting publicly. My favourite posts are not the ones about going to buy shopping, they are the ones that tell you something interesting, funny and amusing.

Overall it seems pointless when you first join, just like a site dedicated to the 'status' feature of Facebook, but definately grows on you. My turning point was the morning it snowed last week, and on the public timeline you could see the reactions of people all around the country, VERY interesting.

On a more informative note you can also choose to receive news updates from BBC England, and could effectively just use it as a free text information service.

On a less informative note apparently you can follow Macworld (I don't have one and so won't be), and there are rumours that many tv/film directors are planning on joining, including the director of My Name is Earl... or that Ed show, i can't remember which or where I read it...

NB. It is Mike Pennie, writer/producer of 'My Name is Earl'. Find his twittering here. And I rediscovered this on the Twitter blog here.