Atwitter on Twitter

Twitter has been blowing up of late.  Recently, I've had more and more non-techie friends asking me about twitter, what it's about, why one should try it, etc.  I've tried explaining twitter a few ways but still don't think I can do so in a concise way.  To some people it's "facebook status updates, but public".  To others, it's encapsulated in a picture depicting friends hanging out.  It's hard because it is a communication platform used in a number of different ways: as a way to interact with friends, as a source of real-time information from events as they unfold (as with the mumbai attacks), as a way to communicate with one's 'tribe', as a marketing tool, and on and on.  Kind of like how blogs is a catch-all term referring to a communications platform used in many different ways.  So it's not surprising that Evan Williams, one of the pioneers behind blogging, was a founder of twitter.  Go Ev.