What are you doing right now? What are you thinking; what has caught your attention? We have an increasing nosiness about us; thanks to blogs and FaceBook we now know more about each other, and share more than ever before. This has merely whetted our appetite for sharing.

One of the best features in FaceBook is the update, where you post what you are thinking and doing. It gives your friends an instant snapshop into your day. There is a micro-blogging phenomenon, www.twitter.com, in which users can post short thoughts, as benign as “I am having a coffee with Greg” to the sublime “I just discovered the meaning of life!” and everything in-between; as long as it fits in 140 characters or less.

Twitter posts arrive on your desktop, to your phone, or wherever you choose, and they are short and to the point; hence the limit on the number of characters. Everyone from businesses to rock bands to private individuals are joining the Twitter bandwagon, and the ways it is being used are numerous and creative. Twitter is the next step on the social-networking evolutionary-timeline; ultimately it may change the way we build consensus. Although it will take time for Twitter to change the world, it is a way for many of us to extend our sphere of influence; our reach. A case in point is renowned cyclist Lance Armstrong who used Twitter to help recover his lost bike. Some 140,000 people subscribe to Lance’s Twitter feed, where he posted that his very unique racing bike was stolen. Almost instantly a FaceBook group was created, and within days the bike was recovered.

Twitter was used as a publicity mechanism in the 2008 presidential campaign, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has a feed, as does the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As expected, most pop icons - such as Britney Spears, Ashton Kutcher and ColdPlay - use Twitter to communicate with their fans. In fact Twitter itself is becoming a vehicle for fame and fortune, so much so that Forbes has even published a list of their top 10 most influential Twitterers. Mostly full of geeks and web celebs, Guy Kawasaki is number one (former Apple marketing wizard), and you don't find any classic celebrities till the number 9 post with eccentric British comedian and author Stephen Fry, and number 10 with former child star Wil Wheaton (Star Trek – The Next Generation). The interesting thing about these “celebrities” is they have interesting things to say, observations and insight. In a way there is more depth to them, and they are finding a new following and a new level of fame as a result.

Not to be outdone I have begun my own Twitter career (http://twitter.com/dottotech), and to be honest, I am not sure how it will go! It will be interesting to see how many people are interested in what captures my imagination, what we are working on and where I am flying this week. So far I have 160 rabid followers of my Twitter missives; an auspicious start to be sure, but let us see where we are in 4 or 5 months. Perhaps I can give Guy Kawasaki a run for his money.