We here at The Garland Group are a pretty tech savvy lot, and we like to use social media tools to stay in touch. Many of us use a very popular service called Twitter. In fact, we use it so much, we forget that not everybody knows what Twitter is all about. The concept is really simple, but it is really difficult to explain why it is useful. Twitter has showed up in the news quite a bit lately as journalists have tried to report on the phenomenon, but those reports often leave people asking, “why?”

So, first, what is Twitter? Twitter is a micro-blog where you can post (or “tweet”) messages up to 140 characters in length. You can follow other users, and Twitter will show you their tweets. The idea is that you tweet about what you are doing or what’s on your mind, and others can choose to listen.

How is this useful? Have you ever been asked, “what are you up to?” It comes up all the time in conversation. Friends like to know. It’s just not practical to call or message friends all the time to tell them what’s happening. I want to stay connected with my friends, but I would be awfully annoyed if they each called or emailed eight times a day to keep me informed. Twitter makes that connection easier. This video by commoncraft illustrates it very well:

Twitter is more than a web site. It is a utility. All the cool kids use programs like TweetDeck or Twhirl on the desktop. The really hip and cool kids use twitter from their mobile phone.

Twitter is even used for business. A shop can tweet a 2 hour discount sale when business is slow. CEO’s and sales people build relationships with clients by sharing their daily lives. Our own Banktastic tweets new activity at http://twitter.com/banktastic. Check it out.