I can’t remember the last time a web app got this much attention.

Twitter seems to be gaining in popularity at blistering speeds; creating massive gaps in opinion among bloggers about its usefulness, and whether or not it is worth all the hype.

The Cliff Notes on Twitter: It’s a nifty little web application that allows you to broadcast “what you are doing,” using your phone, your instant messager, or by typing into the window on your “home” page on the Twitter site itself. You can then choose to display a small widget (in your sidebar, for instance) that looks like this:

(apologies to those reading this with a feed, you can’t see it)

To me, there’s no secret why it’s so popular; once you have someone on your friends list, you can receive updates (as often as they feel like sharing them) on exactly what they’re up to. To draw a parallel, I’ve recently been wasting entirely too much time on Facebook, and just the other day I realized why this is (and what makes it vastly better than MySpace). It gives you an editable news feed, that keeps you up to date on what all your friends are doing with the site. If a friend comments on another friend’s photo, or God forbid changes their relationship status from “In a relationship” to “It’s complicated,” (for instance, of course) eyebrows get raised.

People want to know this stuff it seems, and perhaps even more surprising is that people are quite comfortable with sharing it, too.

I have yet to make up my mind one way or another about Twitter, but I would be remiss if I didn’t add the two cents that I’ve been able to collect so far on this latest social web widget phenom.

For one thing, the Twitter site itself is painfully slow. And I mean really slow. Like, if Myspace was forced to crawl uphill with Facebook on its back, it would fetch the proverbial pail of water long before Twitter could load my “friends” widget. And at the moment, I have just three Twitter friends.

Yes, that is your invitation to add me.

Mack has yet to make up his mind about it as well:

I’m going to keep an eye on Twitter, but stay on the shore for now. There’s a ton of buzz about Twitter right now, but is that due to what it provides, or that ‘everyone’s talking about it’? Time will tell, and right now time is something that I’m already running short on.

Mack and I tend to agree more often than not - and I think in this case we might be equally skeptical. But where he prefers to “stay on the shore,” I’m diving in head first. As I see it, it’s the only way for me to fairly evaluate whether or not it truly is worth all of the hype.

For more of a background on Twitter and to help get started (assuming your interest is piqued), I came upon this article, via Kris Krug’s feed, entitled “A Newbie’s Guide to Twitter,” which I have yet to read in its entirety, but seems to be a great way to get one’s feet wet with the app.

So, perhaps you’ll be reading an update in a few weeks time once I’ve formed a decisive opinion on Twitter. Judging by the sheer number of people (read: cool kids) using it, I might fall in love in spite of its incredible slow interface.

Have your own opinion to share? Let ‘er fly in the comments.

And oh yeah! Add me.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 20th, 2007 at 11:21 am and is filed under web 2.0, the blogosphere, new media, social media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.