Stephen, one of the kids here, has made it his mission for the month to bring me up to speed on all things Twitter. I have made so many basic blunders so far as to be a personal embarrassment. I can understand his concern. These days status and pecking order can change with a shift in tech platforms. From Facebook to Twitter to FriendFeed to Posterous to Vibe to Flickr to TwitPic. OMFG! NOWUT?

Stephen is not a fan of the “I unrolled my toothpaste tube -- there was a tiny hole in it” variety of tweets. He is all about information: finding it and sharing it. He'd rather tweet “How can we have been alive for the past ten years and missed this! (insert totally awesome, but obscure url here)”. Tweets with a purpose. Then he can re-tweet, which increases his visibility, which will ultimately serve some career advantage. (Why, I'm still trying to figure out.)

I actually sorta get all of that. What I don’t get is why Twitter is suddenly getting so much mainstream media coverage. Tweets from the floor of the U.S. Congressional Welcome of the President Address? More importantly, I don’t understand what the ultimate influence on our society will be (if any). Why is the inconsequential being elevated to heroic proportions in the media? Is it because monumental things like reusing dental floss need a public forum of their own?

The co-founder of Twitter (and eBlogger) claims that the human need to “connect” is what drives people to blog and make their lives more transparent then ever before and the need to “share life” is what is driving the phenomenal growth of tweeting as a pastime/obsession.

It is painfully obvious that a comparatively small number bloggers and tweeters are generating the majority of verbiage and traffic in these two universes. The number of times that the same conclusions, revelations, references and recommendations keep popping up is astounding.

And so it is doubtful that any real breakthroughs in the knowledge of why and how we need to communicate will emerge from these technology platforms. If that is indeed the case then hopefully we can look forward to these forms of abbreviated connection influencing something far more meaningful. That influence is what I find fascinating.

If the influence is shorter message forms moving at a higher velocity then a way of saying more with less will have to be developed. Perhaps the emergence of words that encapsulate entire schools of thought. For example, the entire financial meltdown could be expressed in “Bankgreed.” All of these connective technologies for social networking could be represented by “GridMix.” The possibilities are “ndls”.

If the emerging influence of the “BlogisTwit” is how we receive messages. In other words, posted information that is general, as opposed to targeted direct communication that is specific. Then the mediums for those messages on the fly could be far more imaginative.

Then there is the aspect of time. What is the influence of instant messaging and real-time interactivity on our ability to respond? Is it enough for us to know? Is it necessary to have the ability to respond? What is the nature of response and how will it be influenced by this message from me to you?