Twitter? It's What You Make It

[Commentary] There's nothing quite like Twitter. It's a Web site where you can broadcast very short messages — 140 characters, max — to anyone who's signed up to receive them. It's like a cross between a blog and a chat room. Your "followers" might include six friends from high school, or, if you're Barack Obama, 254,484 of your most tech-savvy fans. (Incidentally, he hasn't sent out a single Twitter message since taking office. Where are his priorities?) Meanwhile, you sign up to receive the utterances of other people. Eventually, your screen fills with a scrolling display of their quips — jokes, recommended links, thoughts for the day, and a lot of "what I'm doing right now" stuff. Even so, I was turned off by the whole ego thing. Your profile displays how many followers you have, as if it's some kind of worthiness tally. (See also: Facebook friend counter.) Then one day, I saw Twitter in action.