Twitter's utility, part2

Twitter. Think of it as a mini-blog service of sorts, and a group messaging tool. Posts to it, called Tweets, are limited to 140 characters.

Rob Pegoraro, IT columnist/blogger at the Washington Post has written a column about his experience with Twitter. Other than disapproving of its too-often down-time, he generally liked his experience.

Twitter has become my public notebook, in which I jot down the one- or two-sentence comments, quotes and reports that aren't yet worthy of a blog post, but which I don't want to leave buried in my story-ideas file. (Some of my Twitter updates do turn into blog posts, some of which themselves eventually evolve into stories--which can in turn provide for follow-up tweets and blog posts. There's a bit of a circular food chain here.) In addition, Twitter helps me stay current on the thoughts of other tech-industry types--the reporters, analysts, consultants, publicists, developers and other people whose updates I follow or who post replies to my own tweets. And Twittering's forced brevity has pushed me to be more efficient in my prose everywhere else. I've settled on a rhythm of five or six posts on a workday, with none on nights, weekends and holidays

At a recent beer event, a beer store owner saw me posting a Tweet. "You're such a techie-geek," he said with a chuckle. I began to explain how I use Twitter for business purposes (selling beer).

Then I realized, "Well, yes. I suppose am." And I took another sip of my beer.