Tout de Tweet

As one with a recently renewed enthusiasm for the micro-blogging service, Twitter, I found the above video a brilliant explanation of the service*.

Since becoming more engaged with Twitter, I've gained a deeper understanding of its power and value. Its potential is much greater than what is implied by the service's simple premise of answering the question, "What are you doing?". I've been seeking out, and selectively following, a variety of Twitterers. Since signing up, I've used Twitter to get "up to the minute" tweets from NPR during the DNC and from a New Orleans resident tweeting in the middle of Gustav.

And, I've found that a tweet's 140-character limit (in the right hands) is able to convey volumes (or a least paragraphs). I was having an email(!) conversation with someone this weekend and suggested it would be a dialogue better suited to Twitter and was told by the other party – who shall remain unnamed – that the character limit imposed by Twitter might hamper nuance, complexity, cleverness to which I emailed him my favorite – and immensely clever – tweet by a now anonymous Twitterer:

I like that Twitter's 140-character limits encourages eloquence —brevity is the soul of wit, after all— but too often it also prevents me fr

I encourage my readers – particularly the skeptics – to give it a try. Tweet me when you do.

*The video is by Common Craft makers of surprisingly effective "short and simple videos" that "make complex ideas easy to understand".