Twitter, What Is It Good For

Absolutely nothing (to paraphrase the song), as some would say. Twitter is getting a lot of attention these days for being social networking service that lets you tell the world what you're up to, assuming anyone really cares, in 140 characters or less. Twitter lets you follow other users' updates, and allows others to follow yours.

Though Twitter serves this purpose well, it is the hidden potential made possible by Twitter's open platform, continuous and interweaving conversations, and creative users that has me thinking this is becoming far more than an extension to Facebook's status updates.

Beyond the simple "going to the store" and "having a cup o' joe" status updates, many are turning to Twitter as a way to get the word out about breaking news, highlight technology trends, converge around events and share music recommendations.

The introduction of @reply, which allows a quick reply to any Twitter user's post, and #hashtags, which enable posts to be categorized, have launched new dimensions to the service that both enhance the conversation flow and allow users to cut through the noise to the core of almost any topic topic.

Using Twitter's APIs, Summize.com and Hashtags.org have built services that allow us to peak into conversations, organizing the chaos and providing an integrated view of individual discussions united by common themes.

Now, for any discussion or topic, not just mine but any, I can join and leave at my discretion, chose to monitor only or participate, get involved or remain anonymous. I can pivot the conversation by user, tag/topic, keyword, timeframe.

This all facilitates Conversation Surfing, like web surfing but based on what people are actually saying (in public, on the web of course).

What I want now are linkable #hashtags and, even better, text (implicit tags) from within Twitter posts. And why not link to or pull in relevant sites, products, pictures, videos, music, concerts, etc from other sites, much like Zemanta is doing as I write this blog entry. Semantic-web-like, in real-time, based on what I am doing *and* saying. The essence of personalization.

Twitter is quickly becoming the 2008 version of the chat room, but in a more open, contextual and slice-and-diceable way.

So what is Twitter good for? I'd say it is less about the simple act of what you are doing, more about opening wide the channels of communication.