There has been a steady amount of press over the past few weeks for Twitter - the "micro blogging" service that lets you say whatever you want in no more than 140 characters.
After re-joinging again recently (I'd tried it long ago before the use of twitpic / @ and # tags) I quickly found it a great way to reach out to like minded teachers, and discuss issues, make suggestions, sound out ideas and generally hear other people with the same educational outlook as myself talking (or should be "tweeting"??).
Soon came the Twitter security issue - fake homepages that were harvesting usernames and passwords to then gain access to other accounts and send messages across the system (several celebrity messages left were unusual to say the least).
And then came Jonathon Ross. The guy had obiously had too much free time on his hands, and took to twittering to occupy him during his suspension from broadcasting (google his name along with Russell Brand and you'll see why he was off air). Not content with twittering along quietly (as Stephen Fry has been doing for a long time), he took it upon himself to bring to the publics attention all the "real" celebrities using Twitter, and outing all the fake celeb accounts.
Now, I have nothing against JR, he's great and he's brought a whole new type of person into the twitterverse - but he's also inadvertendly notified the mainstream of the potential audience for tweeting. How long before we start getting tweets inviting us to try the latest greatest cola, or telling us to "just do it"?
It would be the end of Twitter as a social, communication tool for real internet users, and the beginning of a global, instant advertising medium. And that would be built on money, profit and subscriptions...
