Twittering about

This morning, Mr. P, my boss came up with questions about Twitter. It baffles him how it can be so popular, and even more confusing is why somebody wants to know what he is doing 24/7. In the end, we decided that I am going to prepare Twitter 101 for him so here is some info from Twitter FAQ:
What is it?
Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing? Bloggers can use it as a mini-blogging tool.
How do I use it?
Tell us what you’re doing in 140 characters or less! Send your thoughts, observations, and goings-on in your day. Whether you’re “eating an apple” or “looking foward to the weekend” or “Heading out of town” it’s twitter-worthy. Join us here. All of your personal information including your phone number is, of course, confidential.
But… what is the point?
As it turns out, your best friend is probably interested in knowing if you’re “loving the new Radiohead album.” And yes, your Mom may want to know if you’re “skipping breakfast in favor of a latte.” You might want to know if your significant other “feels like taking a roadtrip.” Find out what your friends are doing; keep each other abreast of your quotidian rituals.
To me personally, Twitter is more like a social-networking + micro-blogging service. I find quite convenient too because users can send tweets to the Twitter website, text message (SMS), instant messaging, or external application like Twitterrific or Facebook. But what is so great about Twitter? Well, some people post a really mundane things like "I have just eaten apple", but we can also use Twitter in a bigger scope. Let say it is like a simple group-SMS service, so instead of emailing or posting a blog, I can simply tweet a new cool link that I have just found and my friends (or followers) would be immediately updated.

On the business side, if you have built a Twitter credential, just like the way of bloggers, you will have a very good tool to advertise and reach your followers. For example you have just written an article, then you tweet the link and inadvertently helps to increase the traffic to your article. You can subtly endorse certain brand without doing the personal mouth-to-mouth tradition. Free online advertising and brand channeling comes in 1 easy form. Many companies started to make use Twitter to reach their audience: the American presidential candidates use it for publicity, CNN is beginning to break news with Twitter, Tennis Channel is hyping French Open with Twitter, and so forth. So what can I say? Twitter is going to open a new way of marketing.