The original…or at least the site that launched the microblogging craze. Twitter is also the most simplistic of the three sites. Where some people would criticize its simplicity, I would praise it. It’s this exact feature that makes Twitter so outstanding. There’s nothing to think about. You make a post, 140 characters or less, and off it goes for the world to see. You can follow other people’s tweets by adding them as friends, or by going to the public timeline to watch the entire community. It can be surprisingly addicting. You can tweet from your mobile phone or from an IM client too (currently AIM and gTalk). Twitter also offers some nice javascript and flash badges for you to put on your blog, Myspace, or Facebook accounts. I prefer a more minimalistic approach as seen on my sidebar. Just straight HTML and RSS. I call it sidebar blogging. Pretty clever, eh! Think it will stick?

Twitter’s prettier sister. Jaiku has almost all the qualities of Twitter and then some. One of Jaiku’s greatest features is the ability to pull all your feeds from around the net (including those from Twitter) and place them into your Jaiku. For example, I have my flickr photos, my blog entries, my del.icio.us bookmarks, and my tweets all streaming into my Jaiku. It’s like one stop shopping for everything I do on the net. They also have an improved commenting system and the ability to subscribe to different channels (groups). Think of Jaiku as a more robust and complex version of Twitter. For me, I just set it up and let it run on autopilot. My Jaiku is constantly updated by my feeds. I do pop in from time to time and post something in person or check my channels. If you’re looking for something with a little more kick than Twitter, Jaiku is probably right up your alley.

The new kid on the block. So new in fact that’s it’s invite only. Pownce almost doesn’t fit in the microblogging category. There are no outgoing (or incoming) RSS feeds to broadcast your posts. Everything is done on the site and is a very closed atmosphere. While it may not be a full-fledged microblogging platform, it does share some characteristics with the genre. I would describe Pownce as a hybrid service. A cross between microblogging, chat, and file sharing, and this is where it gets its strength. Pownce gives you the ability to choose who to send various entries to, whether in be to the public, a private message to a friend (or friends), or to a predefined group in your contact list. You can also determine what type of post to send them, i.e., a message, a link, a event, or a file — the latter of the four being the most useful. With a standard account you can send up to 10 megabyte files, or upgrade to a pro account for $20.00 a year, and send up to 100 megabyte files. I’m not sure how I feel about that yet, I’ll keep you posted. Pownce is still in its infancy as a web app and I’m sure we’ll see some new features rolled out over the next few weeks. They also just gave us 6 more invites, so if anyone would like to check it out for themselves, just say the word and I’ll shoot you an invite.

The last thing I’ll mention is that all three services above have stand-alone programs that allow you to monitor and interact with their respective communities. This is nice if you don’t want to keep your browser open all the time to receive/post new messages.

And that’s it, those are my thoughts. If you leave here with anything today, it should be this:

• Twitter = simplistic / minimalist
• Jaiku = robust / feature rich
• Pownce = hybrid (blog + chat + ftp)

twitter.com/skyecade
skyecade.jaiku.com
pownce.com/skyecade

Twitter is sort of a cross between a blog and an away message. Unlike a blog, you can only post 140 characters at a time. You have the ability to post entries, or tweets as they are so affectionately called, via the web, a cell phone (sms), an IM client, or from a variety of desktop applications. Twitter asks the very simple question, “What are you doing?”. All you have to do is answer that question. It’s strange, I know. It’s even more strange that people are doing it. Not a few people mind you, but thousands. People use it to keep tabs on their friends. Organizations may use it to keep interested parties up to date. Some people even use Twitter to campaign for the Presidency.

I know, still a little strange. In fact, be sure to bookmark this page, because you’re probably going to dismiss Twitter pretty quickly. I know I did. It’s the natural Twitter cycle — a couple of weeks will pass and every time you hear the word twitter your ears will perk up. You’ll start hearing about it more and more, until finally, curiosity gets the best of you. You’ll sign up, you’ll post your first tweet, and you’ll be hooked. It’s usually around a 2 to 4 week process. At that time make sure to come back here for a list of some pretty handy Twitter resources.

Ah good, you’re back.

Let’s start with twittervision. This site pretty much sums up the Twitter experience. It grabs tweets from the public Twitter timeline and places them on Google maps in real-time. It’s addicting all by itself.

Remember those desktop apps I referred to up above? They allow you to post tweets and receive updates right on your desktop. You can choose to receive updates from the public timeline or limit it to people in your friends list. There are a few different applications to choose from, depending on what operating system you are running. Let me make it easy for you:

Twitter Desktop Applications

• Twitterific - for Mac users
• Twitteroo - for Windows users.
• gTwitter - for Linux users.

Recommended reading:

I really enjoyed the Twitter write-up over at Kottke.org. Check it out if you get a chance. While you’re it, another good article to read is Hacking Twitter for Fun and Profit. Good stuff there.

Some extra tidbits:

The founder of Twitter, Evan Williams, was also the co-founder of Blogger.com and more recently Odeo.com. Blogger.com was eventually acquired by Google and Odeo.com has since been put up for sale. From what I understand, Evan’s company Obvious Corp wants to focus all it’s time and energy on Twitter. That’s good for you Twitterholics.

And there you have it. Now go give it a try. You can look me up at twitter.com/skyecade. Just in case you want to know what I had for breakfast,… or what movie I’m watching,… or what pants I decided to wear,… or what project I’m working on,…or what I’m thinking about at any given moment, etc…