Some of you may have noticed a new addition to my sidebar: a Twitter stream.

Chances are, you’ve probably begun to hear about this Twitter, as it’s making a grand entrance into the mainstream conscience after a relatively short span since inception.

So what exactly is Twitter?

In short, it’s a way for individuals to express what they’re doing/thinking/watching/etc, in 140 characters or less.  It’s similar to a Facebook status update, except a “tweet” is inherently public and broadcast to one’s followers, while a Facebook message is meant for one’s specific network of friends.

Further, Twitter is the hottest venture-backed company in America, even though its revenue model is still unclear.  That isn’t bothering the founders as of now, as the service is just now rising up from the land of techno geeks and venture capitalists into the realm of popular culture - ABC’s Nightline did a nice story last night to provide an easy to understand overview of the service.

I have to confess, for a long time I didn’t “get” Twitter.  But I signed up a few months ago and in the time since I have begun to see more and more value in being able to both interact with friends while also “following” interesting people in my industry.  Chances are this all sounds like a bunch of mumbo jumbo to the majority of you - I hear you, because that was me a few months ago.  But I truly believe Twitter will be a longstanding part of our world, in some shape or another (depending on how/when it eventually gets acquired by a bigger company).

If I anyone who reads this is on Twitter, let me know in the commetns.  And, oh yeah, you can see my full Twitter stream here: www.twitter.com/zackmansfield