NOTE: This is an image of Twitterrific, a Mac OSX app for using Twitter. Not an image of Twitter itself.

After reading about Twitter on kirainet I decided to give it a try. It’s a simple SNS (Social Network Site) where you update the world with one line entries about “what you are doing” at that moment. Sort of like bite-sized reality TV in 140 characters or less. Sounds dumb, but it’s actually very addictive, which is also the last thing I need right now. My attention span is already fragmented enough with all the email, IM and other stuff coming at me constantly. But for people who are in front of a computer all day long like me, it’s kind of fun to watch what others are doing and makes you feel connected without the intrusiveness of chat or email which requires a reply. Twitter is very simple and does it’s job, but I’d like to see more advanced features such as finer control of privacy levels, calendar views, export entries etc. At the moment, you can either publish for everyone to see or only your contacts. So you can’t really write anything confidential or secret like “working on assassination plan of XXXX” or “cheating on my wife.” I’d really like to use it partially for keeping track of my activities at work and keeping myself accountable for my time. I could also see a tool like this becoming part of an enterprise solution where users can inform their colleagues or manager on where they are or what they are doing. Although, I know most people wouldn’t bother updating it.

But the best thing about Twitter is Twitterrific (above) for Mac OSX. When someone updates their twitter a soothing tweet tweet bird chirp sounds and a small, nicely designed popup appears on your desktop displaying the latest update from your friends. It’s sooo cute!! I only have a couple people in my contact list so far but if I had dozens I’m sure I would turn this off. You can view my twitter profile here and if you are already on Twitter please add me. Or let me add you.