So what is all the “twittering” about? If you are a user of the micro-instant-message-blogging service Twitter, then you know that people don’t “twitter,” they “tweet.”

Twitter was invented in 2006 by Jack Dorsey as a side project because he wanted to be able to keep up with what his friends at work were doing. Jack was working for a podcasting company called Odeo. During a brainstorming session, Jack proposed the idea of a small instant blogging service as a way for Odeo employees to keep up with each other. The idea took wing, so to speak, and Twitter was born in March of 2006. In July of that same year, Twitter was launched as a free public service.

Twitter asks the rhetorical question, “What are you doing?” to all of its users. When you tweet, you simply answer the question. Subscribers, or followers, of your tweets see your updates (and thus know what you’re up to) but aren’t under obligation to respond unless they want to. Tweets simply appear, and followers can pay them as little or as much attention as they wish.

Users control whose tweets they receive, when they receive them, and on what device. Users can set Twitter to automatically turn off at certain times, and Twitter updates can be switched off at any point. To keep things simple, tweets are limited to 140 characters. (To give you an idea of the length of a tweet, the first paragraph of this article contains 155 characters.)

Simplicity has played an important role in Twitter’s success. Twitter makes it easy for people to stay connected without increasing the demand for their attention.