How Twitter makes it real

I wondered why people are using Twitter.

Twitter members can use the company's web site, their cell phones, or IM accounts to post and read messages. The catch is the messages can be no longer than 140 characters long. Most usually answer the Twitter question: What are you doing? The messages go out to the member's social network, but they also go out to a public timeline that posts online.

Interview with founder of Twitter in
What's Twitter's Success? More answers for Jeff Jarvis
Jemima Kiss of MediaGuardian interviewed Ev Williams, Founder of Twitter, (in Oct 2007) to understand its success.
Williams explains that even his mother doesn't understand the tool! But, it's taken on a life of its own...And Williams sold Blogger to Google.
So, what's in store for Twitter? Google...or teaming up with others like docstoc.com where users can share ideas, comment on documents, or refer a friend to needy information at the right time?
What's Twitter?
Group Text Messaging or Micro-Blogging
How's the tool evolving?
It's in its infancy to become a functional, personal tool - "Users need a critical mass of friends, and then the real conversations begin.
"What's the attraction?"
Dedicated users share ideas, ask questions, suggest meetings and post useful links and stories...charming details of day-to-day lives that would otherwise be lost.
"What are these "shared ideas..." called?
Tweets
How old is Twitter?
17 months
How many users Tweet?
350,000
What's Twitter's goal?
To grow the core service because of the practical benefits of socializing

On BBC News Bill Thompson is explaining his use of Twitter:
....
But as I sit here writing this I feel connected to a community of people, feel that we share a space that none of the social network sites can conjure up, a space that is both here and not here, somewhere between offline and online.
And I feel that I have a foretaste of what tomorrow's network world will bring, when the boundaries have dissolved completely and we can experience the network directly through augmented reality contact lenses or direct neural connections or whatever other technologies make it out of the lab and into the streets in the next decade.



Barack Obama on Twitter Official Twitter Page
Hillary Clinton on Twitter Official (?) Twitter Page