Why I love Twitter

People are beginning to chime in on why they either love or hate Twitter, and since I've more or less gone kookoo for tweets (Twitter updates), I thought I would add my two cents. In summary: I think of Twitter as the ultimate status message for everyone, everywhere. In fact, I really see the deceptively simple service as one of those 'it' ideas that fills a technological gap that's been left wide open for far too long.

We have IM, email, and mobile phones to stay in touch with the world. When our status changes (and I mean 'status' as in 'whatever is going on'), it often involves any combination of setting a new IM status, calling someone to let them know what's going on, posting to a blog or emailing a co-worker to say you're stepping out. Twitter, even in its infancy, has taken innovative strides to remove this tediousness from staying updated and connected with what is going on in the worlds of the people who matter to us.

If you check out the Twitter Fan Wiki, you'll see a whole slew of plug-ins and other tools from enthusiastic users that help you integrate Twitter into the way you work and play. For example: I use a couple of those tools to plug in to Adium and iChat so my status message in those chat apps echoes whatever my latest Twitter update is. Now, even if I'm out 'n about and, say, running late for dinner or meeting a co-blogger to make a podcast, I can send a tweet that can inform everyone who wants or needs to know - whether they're watching my updates via IM, SMS on their phones, or any of the growing number of new Twitter apps that are cropping up. No need to call or email a bunch of people - I simply tell one service what I'm doing, and everyone gets informed no matter how they choose to get updated. It's a beautiful thing once you wrap your head around it and explore some of the possibilities.

Of course, there are pitfalls to this service and how useful it can really be. The most significant is probably whether or not people you know actually use it. As much as I wish *all* my friends were as much of a nerd as I am with stuff like this so we could all Twitter the crap out of each other, that just isn't the case. My wife hasn't even caught the bug yet (though we'll have a heart-to-heart about that soon). More to the point though: Twitter is only useful if the people you want and need to listen are actually doing so. Of course, Twitter is new, and as with all good things - especially such great fundamental ideas as this - it takes time.

The other obstacle is how well Twitter can be integrated into the way we work, and this is an area where I actually fault the company. Like so many other web 2.0 startups, they have relied on an enthusiastic community to build the tools that let us interact with their service. Perhaps this is out of some creative ideal or simply from a sheer lack of manpower, but I think this is an incredibly crucial ball that Twitter themselves should pick up and run with. If they want to be all they can be, I think they should be the ones to build as many of these extra tools, plug-ins and scripts as possible (or at least the more popular ones). No one knows Twitter and how the service works better than Twitter, which means they're in the best position to build a solid plug-in for Adium or a reliable Dashboard widget.

Granted, these rules could be said of just about any budding new web service, but like I said before, Twitter is a fundamental and fantastic new idea that could significantly change the way many of us work and play. But to do that, they need to dramatically lower the barrier to entry for the greater majority. Aside from the Dashboard widgets, most of the other tools, plug-ins and hacks are clunky to set up, and reliability is even sometimes questionable. Now don't get me wrong: I thoroughly appreciate the efforts of these enthusiastic users. But if Twitter is going to seduce more than just the connected nerds amongst us, this needs to change, and I think Twitter's developers need to be the vehicle for that change.

With that said, I absolutely love Twitter, and I'm excited to see them building steam. They've done a great job so far with solving what I've always perceived as a tedious annoyance with the way we stay connected with each other, and I hope the service continues its strong march towards total web, IM and SMS domination.

Originally published at 1FPS : David Chartier. You can comment here or there.