A few weeks ago I broke down and created a twitter account. My 5 most recent updates will always be displayed on the right side of this blog page, under “Ambient Awareness”. I plan to use it to fill in the gaps and connect the dots between more substantive posts/updates.

Many people strongly dislike the “ambient awareness” that Twitter or and other similar services provide, saying that it’s banal narcissism at its worst. In many case, they’re it’s true. My rational for using twitter is best summed up in a quote from a Wired magazine article.

“Each little update — each individual bit of social information — is insignificant on its own, even supremely mundane. But taken together, over time, the little snippets coalesce into a surprisingly sophisticated portrait of your friends’ and family members’ lives, like thousands of dots making a pointillist painting.”

What do you think of twitter and other forms of ambient awareness?

**UPDATE** Check out the following video that does an excellent job of explaining twitter.