Technology Review in English | en Español | auf Deutsch | in Italiano | 中文

Twitter and Ambient Intimacy

How Evan Williams helped create the new social medium of microblogging.

By Jason Pontin

Thursday, November 15, 2007

E-mail

Audio »

Print

Favorite

Share »

Multimedia

•	Video: Twitter and Ambient Intimacy

Users of Twitter, a new social-networking tool, use the Web, mobile phones, and instant-messaging software to send and receive short, 140-character messages that answer the prompt, "What are you doing?" Launched in March, Twitter already has 500,000 users. Twitter encourages a new kind of social behavior that experts are calling presence--a shorthand for the idea that by using such tools, we can enjoy an intimate, "always on" virtual presence with our colleagues and friends.

Comments

Close Comments

twittering

I'm disabled, so the story's always the same: Here I am lying on my back, in pain, wishing on something, anything to happen that I can contribute to...

dib

Rate this comment:

(Reply)

dib
11/15/2007
Posts:9

Avg Rating:

a witty twitty

Hey Dib! Tell us a little bit about yourself so we can figure just where in the overall scheme of things that you fit in. Like have you ever been abducted by aliens? What political party your affiliated with etc.

Rate this comment:

(Reply)

phoenix
11/15/2007
Posts:172

Avg Rating:

Reply

Computing