All a-Twitter over 'microblogging'

E-mail? Hopelessly old-fashioned. Blogs? Tediously passe. Texting? Sooooo last week.

No, anybody who’s truly “with it” online is now “microblogging” – sending out a sporadic stream of short phrases to family, friends and random strangers, describing the most mundane snippets of your life in real time, via web, cell phone, e-mail or instant messager. You know: “Just finished flossing.” “My nose itches.” “Spilled coffee on my new tie.” Stuff like that.

The current flagship of microblogging is a site/service called Twitter, which describes itself as “a global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: What are you doing?" If you really want to know, here are some actual random Twitters:

More client work. - steinhardt

Mmm, lunch at home is the best – Makal

New low: I’ve made a wrong turn inside of a parking garage. - bkocik

Pretending I’m less drunk than I am. – Colman

[stapler haiku] I sit on the desk / Milton reaches, palms sweaty / I staple, staple – redswingline

Who are the dozen random strangers reading my Twitter? Send me a message if you see this. - josephgrossberg

Nothing, it seems, is too twivial for Twitter. Even so, as the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, venture capitalists are absolutely salivating over it and its competitors (notably Jaiku), and services such as Facebook and MySpace may eventually incorporate microblogging. And its proponents are straining hard to rationalize it as something deeper than what it really is, which is inane chatter from disconnected, multitasking techies. Says Twitter’s Biz Stone: “Any individual post is usually something mundane. But it keeps the relationship alive; it keeps you a good son or a good brother.” Yeah, right.

So are you trying to bite off that hangnail right now? Go ahead, Twitter me.