1 twitter: the public chat {anchor:twitter: the public chat} I have been following a few friends {link:twitter|http://www.twitter.com} messages via {link:Google Reader|https://www.google.com/reader} and I get the impression that it works much like a group chat system. The conversations are similar to cross-linked comments in weblogs and have a similar publicity. Unlike these friends I never really started to use twitter and even deleted my account there, as well as in a few other social networking systems. I give away so much already so I don't want to make the harvesting too easy. What strikes me though is, why a service like twitter has taken away the public chat room from classic instant messaging systems. It works much like {link:IRC (Internet Relay Chat)|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRC} where you can just join into an open chat. However, it looks crude that you have to read the others chat to actually communicate. I guess the real advantage of twitter is the simple user interfaces on loads of different systems that heavy weight instant messaging systems failed to provide until now. 2009-01-18 16:57:17.656 2009-01-18 16:57:17.656