It seems that everyone is talking about Twitter at the moment. Twitter is a free microblogging service that allows posts of 140 characters about, well, anything you like. Twitter has caught the imagination of personal and business users. Whilst it started as a tool for personal comments, it’s started to be embraced by the business arena who now realise it’s value as an instant and cheap platform for announcing news, developments and thinking.

Twitter has enjoyed an estimated 900% growth in usage in the last year and has been recently costed at around $500 million.

Not bad for a service to help bung a couple of lines about yourself around the world.

And there in lies the subtle brilliance of the site. On the face of it, Twitter seems an incredible waste of time! What value can be gained from sending 140 characters out into the ether? But just like any exercise, the more you put into it, the more you get out of it. Some comments (or ‘Tweets’) might be hurriedly thrown out, some carefully crafted, but the more you write, the more followers you will attract and the more your ‘tribe’ will be waiting for your next mini-masterpiece or jaw-dropping announcement. And as the numbers increase, the more you feel inclined to keep them fed and watered on your revelations and news.

Twitter works because it captures the ‘time poor’ mood of the web user. They don’t have time to wade through reams and reams of information. They want quick, short, hard facts with the ability to link to more information, should they wish it. Twitter’s 140 character limit captures this perfectly.

There’s so much more to Twitter than just Twitter itself. The development community is endlessly creating new tools and add-ons for Twitter to expand the base functionality the site offers. You can now upload images, find people based on your profile, update from anywhere with your mobile, translate your tweets into any number of languages. As the tools expand, so do the possibilities with Twitter.

At the end of the day, there’s only one true way to understand and marvel at the wonder that Twitter is and that’s set up an account and get Tweeting! And when you do, don’t forget to follow us!