By Aaron Hall – Daily Post Editor

Twitting? Twittering? No, no… it’s Tweeting.

A staple with the Chatham-Kent Daily Post since its inception on February 24 this year, Twitter has taken off around the globe as a full-fledged online phenomenon.

Following in the steps of ICQ, MSN Messenger and Facebook… Twitter is the latest form of social networking that has taken over the Internet realm, has millions of users and is also an effective tool that we use here at the CKDP.

According to their website Twitter grew from the simple idea of Jack Dorsey of being able to know what his friends were doing. Specifically, Jack wondered if there might be an opportunity to build something compelling around this simple status concept. When he brought the idea up to his colleagues, it was decided that a prototype should be built. By August 2007, Twitter Inc. was founded.

Just last week, Twitter gained even more hype as American talk-show-host Oprah Winfrey had Twitter CEO Evan Williams on her show, celebrity Ashton Kutcher won a battle with CNN to see who could get to one million followers first, and some teams in the National Football League actually announced their draft picks before Commissioner Roger Goodall could make the announcement.

Some people may be asking: Following someone? I’m not a stalker. CKDP uses it, why? How?

Twitter is quite simply a way to keep up to date with the “information overload” that can be the Internet. Once you have an account, you can follow the “tweets” of vast array of different organizations and individuals including national newspapers, Al Gore and even Fred Durst, the front man for Limp Bizkit.

The CKDP utilizes Twitter to help further become connected with the community. And we can in turn provide another outlet to provide news to Chatham-Kent and beyond.

Twitter allows its users to provide updates under the label “What are you doing?” The space only allows for short, quick comments that must be less than 140 characters. Thus, this allows us to provide a short one-liner of a particular story or stories and provide the corresponding link directly to the CKDP.

The people that we “follow” will have their updates appear directly on our own Twitter page, allowing us to receive the information we choose, what we want, or what we find humorous or informative.

You can basically receive as much information as you want or as little, you have the choice.

Twitter is very accessible to various mobile devices as well, such as Blackberries or iPhones, and people can follow their tweets on the fly between meetings, assignments or whatever else they are doing throughout the day.

As still a relatively new user on Twitter, I’m still learning the ropes, but I know for certain that it is extremely simple to use and I can see the value in it for people, no matter what their interests are.

If you notice on our homepage, you’ll see the cute, little bird above the search bar, which says “Follow Our Tweets”. This will link you to Twitter and allow you to follow CKDP in the process.

Trust me, it’s really easy to use and people will see the benefit from it after getting a few tweets and sending a few in the other direction.

The CKDP will begin providing up to the minute updates from Chatham-Kent Council meetings starting tonight at the meeting (April 27) at 6 p.m. in Chatham in order to provide instant access to information for all of Chatham-Kent to enjoy.

“Follow Our Tweets” and get informed!

Aaron is the Managing Editor for the Chatham-Kent Daily Post. Contact the writer at aaron@ckdp.ca