Twitter - A Modern Day Haiku?

Technology fascinates me.

It could be cars. It could be computers. It could be just about anything.

I am not the person that has to be on the cutting edge of owning all the latest cool tech toys. But I would suspect that I am probably not too far off being an "early adopter" as Seth Godin notes in "The Purple Cow" .

Recently I have been exloring the realm of social media. Most people are at least familiar with MySpace, and maybe you've even heard of Facebook or LinkedIn. Another one of the intriguing social media tools these days is Twittter.

Twitter is kind of like instant messaging in that you submit web-based messages that can be sent/received on your mobile phone, the Twitter web site, or a number of desktop applications like Twhirl . It allows you to tell everyone what you're doing, where you are, and anything that you might think is important to the world (or to yourself or your friends!) almost instantaneously. It has even spawned a number of similar services like Utterli , Pownce , Identi.ca , and Jaiku.

The fascinating part of Twitter is that you are limited to 140 characters. Yes, 140 characters - not much to get a thought across the ether. In an era of information and data, it gets the idea out there - short and sweet - which allows for some interesting discussions, both private and public - in real-time. It forces you to be direct and to the point. In many ways, it can be hard edged - or elegant in it's simplicity.

In many ways, it's a bit like writing a haiku - a Japanese form of poetry in which there are three lines with a total of only 17 syllables (5, 7 and 5).

I am sure that over time, the technology will move onwards as it always does. I am sure it will move quickly - again, as it always seems to do. But perhaps there will be a time when we will look back at social web applications like Twitter as our era's modern day haiku.