[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"24","attributes":{"alt":"","title":"","class":"media-image","typeof":"foaf:Image","wysiwyg":1}}]]Better late than never: as from yesterday, ChessVibes is active on Twitter. Or, "followable" on Twitter. Or, "member" of Twitter. Or, "twittering". Or, "sending tweets". This intro says enough: we haven't yet got a clue what it involves, but who cares? You gotta try new things in life, don't ya?

As we learn from Wikipedia, Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users' updates, tweets, which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. Updates are displayed on the user's profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends (delivery to everyone being the default). Users can send and receive updates via the Twitter website, SMS, RSS (receive only), or through applications. (More on Wikipedia and Twitter.com).

The meaning of the Twitter service has always been a bit unclear to me. The basic question that people answer is "What are you doing?" and so what you get is thousands and thousands of people suddenly telling their friends about what they're having for lunch. But, as top internet strategist Jeremiah Owyang writes:

The twitter question “what are you doing now” isn’t the most effective way of using the tool. Instead, answer this question “What’s important to me” or better yet “What’s important to my followers”. Also, engage in dialog, ask questions and answer others questions using the reply feature.

Last week a Turkish Airlines plane crashed short of the runway close to Schiphol airport. CNN used Twitter as its first source of information:

(CNN) -- The social networking site Twitter again stole a march on traditional media when it was the first outlet to publish dramatic pictures of the Turkish Airlines crash. iReporter Laura Eekhos went to the crash site after hearing about it on TV. The area "was swarming with people from our town," she said.

Moments after the plane crashed at Amsterdam's Schipol airport on Wednesday morning the news was appearing on Twitter, CNN International correspondent Errol Barnett said.

"This is a story that broke on Twitter first and continued to unfold from there. Eyewitnesses were posting comments about the shock of seeing the plane 'dive' and amazement of passengers walking out of the wreckage," Barnett said.

"It was a dramatic image of a fractured plane posted on Twitter.com that was the first worldwide view of the Turkish Airlines crash."

(...)

This news kind of convinced me that I should start trying out Twitter for ChessVibes. So from now on you'll find a Twitter widget in the right sidebar, which tracks our "status updates". And if you're using Twitter yourself, you can start following ChessVibes of course! You'll be the first to know about new articles being posted, and I'll try to "tweet" personal messages as much as possible. (Thanks to Twitter, early adopters already know that I'm typing this from Nice, France!)

It's an experiment for ChessVibes too, and hopefully it adds to our news service.