You are reading this post about Twitter. That's what you would answer to Twitter's simple question, "What are you doing?", which is the entire premise of Twitter's existence. Getting people to answer in 140 characters or less, by IM or logging onto Twitter.com, what it is they are doing at that particular moment. Big stuff, right?

Constant stream of consciousness chatter is the lifeforce of Twitter. And this constant feed of the bright and banal is turning a lot of people into Twitter addicts. What makes this so? It could be the sheer ease of use to Twitter. You don't have to construct an entire blog post or for that matter, even a full sentence. Just a thought, a word, an impulse to share and you can Tweet (or post something on Twitter).

To Tweet or not to Tweet
Warning: if you're the compulsive type, you may want to move onto the next post and stop your habit before you even have a chance to start it. (We're not making this up. According to Alexa, Twitter's user reach has increased 526% in the last three months). Now, for those of you who aren't the addictive type or who like to throw all caution to the wind, let's investigate what awaits you in the world of Twitter.

Twitter
Here's where you start by creating an account, user name, password, profile, etc. Add a fun picture and invite some friends to join, or grab some users from the Twitter page as your friends. A popular friend is Darth Vader who is still searching for Luke and posting about life on the dark side. One of his tweets described the inhumanity of a pressure suit after a grande burrito lunch.



You can post tweets by IM, (AIM, Jabber or GTalk), on the Twitter site, or mobile text (SMS) on your phone. Note: If you post by IM, you will not receive phone alerts. To post by mobile, type in 40404 which is a short code to allow you to interact with Twitter.

Twitter is a free service, however, depending on your mobile plan, there may be text charges with your new Twitter activity. You may want to get an unlimited plan or use EmailTwitter (see below), which allows you to avoid those pesky SMS fees.

Commands
There are certain commands, such as, Get - gets recent updates from all your friends, Off or On - turns updates on or off, and Help - which will send a list of commands to get you going. Off will obviously be your friend when you are on deadline and can't afford to procrastinate for much longer.

In Twitter, there is a difference between Friends and Followers. When you add someone as a Friend, you will follow them by default (that is receive all their tweets). However, you can change this situation by clicking leave from their web page (in the actions box) or texting leave + username from your phone or IM.

Example: Leave Darth Vader - this command would keep Darth Vader as your friend, however, his messages about Luke would not follow you everywhere.

Followers are people who receive their Twitter updates on your phone or IM, as well as the web.

@username - allows you to publicly respond to a tweet and references the conversation so others can follow. Below is Scoble's twitter page. It shows a public response tweet to "spin" with an "in reply to spin" tag so people besides "spin" know what he's referring to.


Twitter Badge
If you have a blog or website you can post a widget that streams your tweets on your site.


The Twitter Fan Wiki has all the news and tools to help you get your Twitter going, as well as, great mash-ups for the most expert Twitterers.


is an easy way for people to send Twitter messages about your blog post or website. When visitors to your website click on the TwitThis button or link, it takes the URL of the webpage and creates a shorter URL using TinyURL. Then visitors can send this shortened URL and a description of the web page to all of their friends on Twitter.

EmailTwitter
allows you to post Twitter updates and retrieve your Twitter timeline via your cellular phone or other e-mail enabled mobile device, without incurring SMS fees. On the downside, you will have to input your username and password for each tweet, however, you can register at the site and do away with this inconvenience.

Twittervision
A real-time geographic visualization of posts to Twitter. A poetic time waster of sorts.


Twitterholic
Lists the top 100 Twitter users based on the number of their followers.


Twitterific
Free desktop application for Mac users - allows you to send and receive tweets without being on the Twitter site and takes up small real estate on the desktop. From the Iconfactory, it has the clean user interface you have come to expect on a Mac. Requires: Mac OS X 10.4 or later, Twitter account

Twitteroo
Desktop application for Windows users - allows you to send and receive tweets without being on the site. From Rareedge.com, requires Windows 2000/XP/Vista and the .NET Framework 2.0



Twitbin
An extension in your Firefox browser, it allows you to post tweets within the browser and receive tweets as well.

Power Twitter
Nice Firefox add-in from 30 Boxes, which allows you to add photos from Flickr and your YouTube videos directly in your tweets. It also unwinds the tiny URL's.



We've listed lots of tweet tools to get you started on Twitter, or perhaps enhance your Twitter experience, if you've already begun.