I recall when I saw my first fax machine. I was at the offices of a Japanese distributor in Chicago and couldn't identify the odd piece of office hardware, so I asked. My host patiently explained that he could convert a document into electronic form and send it over telephone line to his home office.

I didn't get it. I couldn't understand how this was an improvement over telex or telephone. Yeah, I know--stupid.

Twitter was like that fax machine when I first heard about it--I didn't get it, but I was chastened by the fax machine experience, so I've been playing with it for a couple of months, and now--you can too.

Lemme 'splain.

Twitter is essentially a short instant message that you can get by email, text on your phone or instant message. Its no more that 140 characters long, which is too long for bloviating, but long enough to get the gist of something.

Originally designed for social networking purposes, its a great way to get breaking news or a heads up on what's happening right now. With that in mind, I've set up a Twitter account that you--our dear readers, can subscribe to for terse, informative, and selective updates--usually about one a day except in exigent circumstances.

All the cool people are doing it...