The rise of microblogging

If there's one thing to be said about Twitter, it's that not everyone gets it. But whether you get it or not, Twitter has seen rapid growth in popularity since its launch in 2006.

The concept is simple. Users register their mobile phones with the site and send SMS to update their status, which can be anything you want it to be, provided it's done in a 140 characters or less. The result has been termed microblogging.

Twitters even made headlines during the recent earthquake in China, when microbloggers were credited with providing faster coverage than international media.

Friends registered with the site receive an SMS telling them what you've posted. My first thought was that's it? But after using the site for a while, you begin to see the appeal, especially when you link the application to social networking sites, such as Facebook.

You can also update the site in other ways, such as through instant messaging apps, directly through twitter.com, or through the myriad of other applications which plug into Twitter. Quite a number of sites have also grown up around the Twitter phenomenon, including rival microblogging sites such as Jaiku.com and Pownce.com.

Appeal

For reasons I don't pretend to understand, Twitter even appeals to people who usually have little interest in the current trend of Web 2.0 apps. A number of friends who I only occasionally hear from replied to my Twitter messages within hours.

Twitter is based in the US, and while it is primarily aimed at that market, Twitter hasn't forgotten that there is an outside world.

Users in Canada and India both have their own shortcodes (shortened phone numbers used for sending SMS and MMS), while users outside of those countries have a UK number they can send updates to.

International users are limited to 250 SMS alerts a week, but I'm sure people will view that as more of a blessing than a problem.