Twitter is so simple yet surprisingly powerful and people are always telling me, I don't get Twitter. It's a lot easier to understand when you have examples so here's just one example of why Twitter rocks.

A few days ago I StumbledUpon a blog from a hardware hacker who built an amazing device which turns almost any deadbolt door into a "secret knock detecting door" (how cool is that eh?). On his blog was a link to his Twitter profile so I followed him.

I occasionally give shoutouts to interesting people on Twitter much like FollowFriday but with more information about why each person is worth following. Today I gave @Grathio a shoutout (first tweet on the bottom) and, being a nice guy, he responded to thank me. I was going to leave it at that when, on my lunch break, I noticed his invention made the front page of Engadget! Now I have a social network connection with an intelligent hacker who made the front page of Engadget (and also Lifehacker as I later discovered). You can see the rest of the conversation below.

So what is it about Twitter that facilitated this connection and why is it so different than conventional tools? The biggest difference is the liberality with which people share their Twitter name. Unlike email, Twitter is a broadcast medium so the more people who know your name, the further your sphere of influence. Of course Twitter is not uni-directional but it is very casual and incoming messages are less intrusive than email so people feel free to engage with less risk and effort.

Here is the conversation thread in reverse chronological order.