I recently got a wild hair and created accounts on
Twitter and
Pownce.
Why the heck do that when there are IM (instant messaging), myspace, facebook, and other.
Like I said I got a wild hair.
Twitter is a IM service that works across cell phones web and other IM services. Some phones may have enough graphics to allow for AIM or Yahoo. Mine does not. Also I type rather poorly. Twitter limits messages to 140 characters. So there are no extended blah blah messages. And it doesn't allow videos, or file transfers. The beauty of it is it's simplicity.
Pownce is similar but more elaborate. You can transfer files and videos. It also has a pay section but I don't use it. You get some ad free services that way.
A few of the reasons I was intrigued by twitter and pownce were the following stories.
Mercury Newshttp://www.scripting.com/stories/2008/04/16/aNewReasonToHateComcast.htmlDave Winer created RSS he used twitter to get advice on how to deal with his comcast issue.
A cute story on what twitter is.
http://www.parentdish.com/2008/04/17/twitter-alerted-world-to-students-arrest/Now I am not into 24/7 alerting people to my life or that intrigued by the actions of others. But I see potential in some of this for some very cool ideas. both of these have ways to incorporate themselves into your facebook, digg, and flickr, accounts.
Now while there are plenty of isolationists here (myself can be one of them). You can bet if you have kids they are going to using these or similar or already are. When you ask your kids what email is, they reply with that is the stuff old people use to communicate.
What may be the saddest thing of all is I have known about these things for a while and just now decided to create accounts.
Sincerely,
Brendhan