I know there are a lot of blogs about the twitter phenomenon and I don't intend to turn our blog into a twitter blog. However, as early adopters of technology I thought it was worthwhile to talk about our twitter experience.

It seems that more and more individuals and organisations are using twitter. For example, the new USA President, President Obama has used twitter as part of his campaign and continues to use it to get messages out to thousands of people. And closer to home, Mosman Council, a local sydney council, has become quite active recently and even encourages local residents to submit photos and get involved in the 'Community Conversation'. Reports have even been written about twitter, O'Reilly Media produced 'Twitter and the Micro-Messaging Revolution: Communication, Connections and Immediacy - 140 Characters at a Time'.

Our own experience of twitter has been positive. Our internal emails have significantly reduced and internal communication has increased, especially with our team members who work offsite.

Twitter has been great for improving communication, even if the comments posted are not directly about work, it's good to know what other people are doing. It's also a lot quicker than sending an email and is completely acceptable to post a short, sharp message. No one is obliged to reply.

We use it for feedback on an idea, and will use it to prompt brain storming sessions. It has definitely added a 'buzz' to the team.

Of course there are downsides of applications traditionally known as 'social networking'. People can get immersed in them and spend hours updating their status and photos. Fortunately we haven't had this problem with twitter as we have guidelines for use which encourage updating but also give a daily time limit. Also, when limited to 140 characters there is less likelihood of excessive time being spent writing updates. There's only so much you can say in 140 characters!

We have also incorporated our twitter IDs into our email signatures and they will also appear in the contact details of our new business cards.

Feel free to comment on this blog. What do you think about twitter? Is it a waste of your time or do your colleagues, family and friends appreciate the quick updates?