Geoff Duncan

Responding to some prompting from folks wondering what I've been up to the last little while (short answer: uh, work), I've put a block on some of my personal Web pages that pulls in my most recent posts from Twitter. You can see it toward the bottom of the narrow bar to the left.

What is Twitter? It might be best described as a micro-blogging service. The idea is that people post short snippets of text (less than 140 characters) describing what they're doing at the moment—or, really, that talk about anything at all. The short message length means Twitter posts (called "tweets") can be composed and posted very quickly, unlike traditional Web pages or blog posts that sometimes take quite a while to compose and produce. No such fuss with Twitter: all you get is 140 characters, no pictures, no italics, no nothing, just text. Twitter requires users to sign up, but it's currently free and carries no advertisements.

Twitter pitches itself at mobile phone users—it's no coincidence that the 140 character limit corresponds to the size of a text message—but users can also access Twitter via the Web or a growing number of desktop and mobile applications. (On the Mac, Twitterific and TwitterPod seem popular.)

So Twitter is kind of like semi-public, short-form instant messaging. But here's the thing: Twitter users can elect to follow other users and automatically receive their "tweets" as they come in. If you have a friend using Twitter, you can follow their posts and receive them—on most mobile phones or on your computer—in more-or-less real time. It's a simple way to casually keep up with people you know, and users can direct replies and follow-ups to each other (called "@replies") and even send each other private messages.

Naturally, some Twitter celebrities have evolved: media personalities and people with some mojo in the online world can have thousands of people following them on Twitter, and it's no secret they aren't all close personal friends. (Even I've attracted a few followers I can't account for…weird weird weird.) Some companies and brands (like CNN and the BBC, but also Amazon and Woot.com) are getting into Twitter as a way to promote themselves to that ever-desirable hip youth demographic.

Adam and Tonya Engst of TidBITS suggested I might give Twitter a try, so I created an account back in September. (Adam wrote a brief paean to Twitter back in October.) I'm still not sure what I think of it: sometimes Twitter's a great way to keep up with friends and fire off one-liners in response to posts from people I know. But Twitter can also feel like being trapped at a cocktail party with people talking about Proust and Nietzsche—I'm sure it's all very erudite, but I'd rather be playing some guitar or taking a walk. And it doesn't help that Twitter isn't the most reliable of services: sometimes it goes down for a while, and sometimes tweets and replies go strangely missing. Oh, well!

My motives in mentioning Twitter here and putting a block or recent "tweets" on some personal Web pages are far less sophisticated. Basically, I've never been the most regular of writers: although Percolating has been holding down its little corner of the Web since 2000—and those are just the posts I could remember and find—even at my best I might manage an item a week on average. And when I get busy—like I have been the last few months—that average goes way down.

So, Twitter is a quick way to show some potentially up-to-the-minute status on these pages, potentially tiding over the handful of readers who might care. If you're already using Twitter, the headline links to my feed; if Twitter looks interesting, feel free to create your own account—as I mentioned, they're free. And if you tell me about it, I might even follow you!