A quick tutorial for the uninitiated. Twitter is a micro-blogging service that asks you the question, “What are you doing now?” (Or “What were you doing?” if you believe @davidrussell.) It’s widely used by people interested in technology and serves as a combination IM/forum for the discussion of the latest trends and tips in technology… and whatever your dog happens to be doing at the moment. Seriously, you don’t have to be all that into technology to get a lot out of Twitter.

If you’re like me, Twitter is how you keep up with what’s going on. I follow some of the big names in the tech and political worlds (not to mention the politech world), plus three of my pastors, some co-workers and friends, and a couple of Congressmen (don’t know of any Congresswomen on Twitter). It’s also where I make semi-poignant observations about things going on around the web. So, for instance, if a widely used web service goes down, I mention it on Twitter. That leads to the question, “What do I do when Twitter goes down?” as it often does. I suppose I could always write a blog post about it, but that seems like a pretty heavy tool to make such a minor observation. Funny how quickly a web service can become integrated in every aspect of my life. Yes, even this blog post will end up on Twitter via Twitterfeed.

If you’re not following me on Twitter, give me a shout at http://twitter.com/willfjohnston, and if you’re not on Twitter, by all means sign up. But you’ll have to wait a while to do either of those; Twitter is down right now.

Update: Must have been a short one, Twitter is back up now (9:38 P.M. EST)

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