Do you twitter? I am getting addict to it.

Few weeks back I came to know about something called "twitter". It is light web based application where you can write short messages. Others can read these messages. If you wish, you can control who all can read these messages. Reading others’ messages is called “following” in twitter’s terminology.

You can write whatever you feel like. It is basically meant to tell your friends on what you are doing at a particular moment. What is your mood? What are you thinking at a particular moment? Or how do you wish to react to your surroundings. You can write whatever you feel like provided it is limited to 140 Characters. If you share a long link, it will be automatically converted into a shorter link through "TinyURL". You can write messages either by going to its site and logging in, or adding "twitter" as your buddy in your Instant Messenger like Google Talk, or sending these by SMS (I have not tried it) or logging via your GRPS enabled phone.

I normally login from my GPRS enabled phone while away from my system. My MTNL phone is quite affordable in this matter - just 2 Paise / KB for its GPRS service. Most handsets are now GPRS capable. But you have to subscribe to GPRS data service from your service provider and install settings. Your service provider will send you the settings through SMS on request. You have to simply save these. Once you have GPRS on your set, the Internet is in your phone. You can surf the net through you phone’s browser. I would again like to recommend Opera Mini. You can download and install it in your phone (Your phone should able to run Java applications). For better experience I would recommend smart phones starting from Rs. 7000 onwards especially with expandable memory.

Now coming back to twitter, what is big advantage of using twitter? Well there is no answer to it. It is one of the social networking applications. If you believe in online communities, then it is for you. There are many other applications built around the twitter. You can generate RSS feeds from it and Mash it on your blog or site. Libraries are experimenting with it elsewhere. What all I can say it that is a Hot application these days and I am already addicted to it. You can follow me at twitter. To some it may appear very silly thing to do, yes I was also not very much convinced to start with. But not now.

Guide to Twitter

You might be wondering what is all this coming on the left hand side. Well I have put up my twitter over here. Twitter is an online service that enables you to broadcast short messages to your friends or "followers." It is also called micro-blogging. Newbie's guide to Twitter will give you more on twitter. I can use my GPRS enabled phone to update my status or leave small messages. Well I can also do that by sending SMSes, which I have not tried yet. I don't think you require that - GPRS charges are much lower as compared to that of SMS. It may noted twitter is free, charges you pay are the one which are charged by your mobile phone service provider. Need not say, that you can use your Internet to update your status. If you include any long URL in your message, it is automatically shortened through http://tinyurl.com/ service. There many services with which you can integrate your twitter.