Twitter, A New Kind of Social Network

Twitter is a new kind of social network. It’s sort of a mix between blogging and SMS services like Dodgeball. It’s also like a really slow group chat or IRC channel. You can post to Twitter from your phone or through the website and then your posts are sent to your friends’ phones as well as the website. You can also choose to have your posts show up on the Twitter public page. Twitter, which officially launched back in July, is a side project of the San Francisco podcasting company Odeo.

Twitter is for staying in touch and keeping up with friends no matter where you are or what you’re doing. For some friends you might want instant mobile updates while for others checking the web is preferable. Invite your friends to Twitter and decide how connected you want you to be.

Twitter just updated their website today, adding some additional features and user control, along with a great re-design by Amy Franceschini of Futurefarmers. Speaking of Amy, she designed the amazing poster for Defenestration back in 1997 and has been busy doing really great stuff ever since.

Here’s Laughing Squid’s account on Twitter.

UPDATE: Odeo/Twitter founder Evan Williams explains that they bought some vowels, adding an “i” and “e” to Twitter. Previously it was called Twttr. Could this be the big comeback of the vowel? Has the missing “e” returned from his hiatus?