Twitter Launches as a Strange New 140-Character Service

A short message from Jack Dorsey may not look like much, but it could point to a new kind of internet conversation.

Dorsey sent the first message today on a project code-named “twttr,” according to the Computer History Museum’s account of the service’s origins. The idea came out of brainstorming at the podcasting company Odeo and focused on sharing short status updates through SMS text messaging with a small group.

The first message was plain: “just setting up my twttr.” That is not the kind of sentence anyone prints on a poster. But the format is the story. Instead of a blog post, an email or an instant message to one person, the service is built around small updates that can tell a group what someone is doing right now.

For students, the idea sounds both obvious and strange. Away messages already let friends perform a version of status broadcasting. Texting already lets small groups move fast. MySpace already gives people a public profile. Twttr seems to sit somewhere between those habits: shorter than a blog, more public than a text, faster than changing a profile page.

The service is not public yet. The Computer History Museum notes that it would be released to the public in July and find its first major success at South by Southwest Interactive in 2007, after being spun off as Twitter, Inc. For now, it is still a small experiment with a clipped name and a narrow use case.

That is why today’s first message matters mostly as a starting line. Nobody at Piper is likely to be using the service between classes this week. But the logic behind it fits the way students are already communicating: short bursts, quick updates, social context and constant checking.

If twttr works, the internet may get even faster and more casual. The first message does not announce that future. It just sets it up.