I got thinking about Twitter today (hat tip to Simon D.) and started doing some research about its origins – I came across both this interview and this photo by Jack Dorsey.

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

Reading the Twitter homepage, made me think about the different tools I have used to stay in touch with my friends and family over the years:

  • I used to be a heavy MSN Messenger user when I moved to the UK  – the status bar allowed me to let my family and friends know what I was up to
  • In early 2000, texting revolutionised the way we used mobile phones. Updating your friends of your wherebouts had never been easier!
  • Then came MySpace and Facebook; both have status bars, a nice easy way to update dozens of people at the same time
  • And then came Twitter, asking a simple question, what are you doing?

This timeline (and time-consuming exercise!) has made me realise that Twitter is in fact, a repackaged MSN Messenger Windows Live Messenger.

The way we communicate and need to communitate is radically changing…  I wonder what Maslow would think about that ;)