News

You don't even want to know what I'm doing right now.

This newspaper isn't the place to provide up-to-the-minute details of one's personal life. For that, we have Twitter, a Web tool launched by a company called Obvious less than a year ago that is already becoming a phenomenon among users of online services. If you visit the Twitter.com homepage, you'll find an explanation of the product that couldn't be simpler. "A global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: What are you doing? Answer on your phone, IM, or right here on the Web!" it urges. And people are, in droves.

"Just sent pictures to a friend," writes someone who calls himself Ruediz. The message, according to the site, was posted less than 10 seconds from the time I arrived on the page. Refresh the page and you'll see a bunch of new postings. "Updated our GeoIP database on all 3 servers," says one obviously tech-savvy user. "Just hit my head on shutter so hard i threw up! grace is not my middle name. i'm ok," adds an unfortunate named Carissa. There is a banality to these one-liners that would make Andy Warhol smile, but there is also an immediacy that, curiously, demands attention.

By now most people know about online journals called blogs. Many may also have friends (or children) who use "instant messaging" to communicate more quickly than they could via e-mail. Twitter combines these two ideas, creating a medium that acts a lot like a Post-It note you might leave on someone's monitor when you step out for lunch. The information the messages contain is specific, time-sensitive and probably not worth archiving.

Businesses are already exploring whether they can use Twitter for their own purposes. Twitter even lists them on its site. Most of them, not surprisingly, are technology companies that use it to update co-workers on the latest change to a software program under development. Others include news agencies such as the British Broadcasting Corporation and The New York Times, which have been quick to use the instant method of broadcasting to break stories. Dow Jones has also shown an interest in using Twitter to offer stock updates.

However, Maggie Fox, who provides consulting services about Web 2.0 tools at a firm called Social Media Group in Dundas, Ont., said Twitter may not fit all companies' particular models.

"If it's a large organization, they're going to want something they can customize to fit their needs," she says.

Ms. Fox is a member of an international association called the Social Media Collective, which is about to launch a series of online radio shows, or podcasts, about the business possibilities for Twitter. She said the real interest may be from taking Twitter's core technology and adapting it for other purposes. "That notion of instantly pushing information is very attractive," she says.

And yet, I remember a few years ago when instant messaging was supposed to overtake e-mail as the dominant form of communication in the workplace. That hasn't happened, in part because corporations were worried about the lack of security around instant messaging systems. It was also a lot harder for the powers-that-be to keep track of instant messages, but Ms. Fox says perceptions are changing.

"As everyone learned with IM, and e-mail before that, you cannot close the floodgates. This application will get in whether you like it or not," she says.

That means companies, even small ones, should word their acceptable use policies vaguely enough that they will apply to something like Twitter.

This would include no profanities or sharing of confidential company information.

"If there's a culture around Twitter, it will be a culture that comes with its own behaviour and norms," she says. "Remember when people used to send e-mail messages all in caps. In the beginning, people didn't know any better. The same goes with blogging and Twitter."

Dave Winer, an entrepreneur who helped develop a lot of other Web-based technologies, explained in a recent blog entry (where else) why Twitter might be worth all this bother. "The role that Twitter is playing is a vital one - it's a notification system, always-up, and keeping it up is someone else's problem," he wrote. "As a system designer, I'd like to believe that Twitter or something like it will always be there. I'm not sure of that yet, but it seems we're close."

An inventive small business could find all kinds of ways to exploit this tool. Ms. Fox, for example, says she has used it to put the word out when her firm is recruiting. Others might fire off progress reports to a boss who's in meetings all day, she adds.

"It's that ability to use something when you don't have time to do a complete debrief with someone," she says. "In terms of teams, it's the ability to have a constant presence, especially when you're spread across a large organization."

As addictive as it can become, time spent surfing Twitter can be strangely unsatisfying. Unlike regular media websites or even blogs, there's not a lot of depth in these single-sentence missives. They are a reminder of how technology allows us to not only manage information but create a lot more of it.

The worst thing that could happen to Twitter is that it becomes the Web 2.0 equivalent of having hundreds of satellite channels but nothing interesting to watch.

When Twitter asks us, as it always does, "What are you doing?" we should only respond if we are doing something worthwhile.

Shane Schick is editor

of Computerworld Canada.

sschick@itbusiness.ca