It seems like in the past few weeks Twitter is everywhere. The local newspaper covered it. Online media sites and businesses are suddenly offering Twitter feeds in lieu of e-mail alerts. 3 people I know have signed up for it in the last week.

What gives? At its very heart Twitter allows you to let the your friends know what you’re doing, in 140 characters or less. The beauty of Twitter is that it allows you to follow and participate multiple conversation threads with you and your friends, organized as a simple list of “tweets”. You don’t have to send a text message to each and every one of your friends, you can just send out a “tweet” and your friends will know what’s going on.

But what I think allowed Twitter to really take off in the past few months is the fact that people are finding other uses for it. People are using it to report the news as it occurs and to mobilize groups of people into action. Businesses and media outlets are realizing they can reach more people on their cell phones and tailor their content into bite-sized chunks, perfect for those on the go.

It will be interesting to see what the future will hold with Twitter. Will it have the same staying power as Facebook, who recently celebrated their 5th anniversary?

(Twitter bird icon via productivedreams.com)