This post was published 2 years 9 months 29 days ago and its content may not be valid anymore.

People argue that the web is a socially isolating force even though there are Blogs, MySpace, FaceBook, IM users are locked in a closed ecosystem with no cross pollination of services. If I wanted to know what an associate of mine is up to I have to remember what IM service or “social” web service he uses. It is just simply frustrating that until recently there was no true unifying service for the people I associate myself with.

The privately funded Twitter hopes to be unifying service. Recently, I conducted a phone interview with its creator Jack Dorsey to find out the finer details of how this tool functions. Twitter is designed from the ground up to help people know the answer to an often hard question: “What are you doing?” It is a platform agnostic global awareness indicator that helps users communicate by using the power of the webs latest technologies. Your status can be updated through their web site, third party applications, SMS or via IM. These status then can be displayed on any website by using “badges” that can easily be embedded in any website, blog or profile service (Such as MySpace, or Facebook) solving the solves the awareness factor.

Twitter also opens up new doors on communication. If you have Twitter set up with your mobile phone or AIM name, it is possible to receive updates whenever one of your contacts updates their status creating an way to instantly disseminate live information for free. (*Hint: We will have an announcement about that later today that will change the way we do live blogging!)

Although at the time of the interview, strong server side encryption has yet to be enabled (It is in progress) but privacy is a priority. Although Twitter has an open API system, the site has gone to great lengths to protect users mobile numbers and IM names, as well as the life long archive of your communications. They also utilize proper data disposal techniques when hardware fails and private information will NEVER be sold.

At 20,000 users strong, and new fun uses the service has great hope.

Read More