Twitter takes e-chat to extremes

REVIEW

By Rachel Metz

updated 3:33 p.m. ET April 12, 2007

NEW YORK - Until a few weeks ago, I thought I was well-connected. I text message and IM friends at a dizzying pace. I keep up with four social-networking sites daily, check e-mail obsessively and even blog when the mood hits me.

But then, around the beginning of April, I started using Twitter — and realized I'm just a neophyte in the fraternal order of constant communication.

Twitter is meant for keeping tabs on friends, who can post notes on what they're up to for you to receive on its Web site, a cell phone or through instant messages. I post messages, too, so they can keep up with me. I can add several friends, even strangers, to my circle, and others can do the same unless I restrict my updates to friends only.

Launched in July by San Francisco-based Obvious Corp., the service is free and has even spawned some cool mash-ups, like the mesmerizing and sometimes nauseating Twittervision.com, which zooms across a world map to show where updates are coming from.

If you're under 20, Twitter's mission might leave you, well, twitterpated — a bit excited, that is. Facebook and Friendster have features for easily tracking friends' activities on the site, but neither provides as many possibilities for constant interaction as Twitter.

With Twitter, updates can come at you constantly, and they're often more mundane — "meetings suck!" and "at work, avoiding work," to give you a flavor — than the average personalized IM or text message.

The site itself sports a bubble-lettered logo and is splashed with a cheery aqua hue. The home page features constant updates on users you don't know, giving newcomers a good sneak peek at the service. Setting up an account is simple, and the site is easy to navigate and use.

Based on its interface and ease of use, my inner teenager thought Twitter sounded pretty fun.

At the same time, my outer adult worried of being bombarded with the minutiae of my office-bound friends' lives — much of which I'm already aware through the aforementioned instant messaging. I was also concerned I wouldn't be doing enough interesting things to warrant blasting my activities to a list of buddies.

But I gave it a try. For about two weeks, I got my Twitter on. I made posts, added friends and kept an eye on the incoming stream.

At first, the experience was pretty benign. I updated as often as I remembered, almost every day, and sometimes several times a day. My missives weren't earth-shattering (example: "drinking coffee and diet pepsi at the same time ... supposedly this will wake me up."), but it was kind of fun trying to make short, snappy posts.

During the first day, things were going smoothly, so I opted to receive updates on my cell phone.

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