Howard Kurtz asked a question on Twitter yesterday about the nature of the relatively new communication network:

Q: Is Twitter just a fun hangout, or do you buy the Time-cover argument that it’s changing the way we communicate and get information?

Time’s managing editor Richard Stangel warned readers to avoid dismissing Twitter as a social phenomenon:

At 7:45 A.M. on June 4, Steven Johnson sent a tweet to his more than 500,000 followers on Twitter, informing them that he had written this week’s cover story about how Twitter is changing the way society communicates. That tweet is also this week’s cover image. I know this is all a bit meta and like trying to capture digital lightning in a jar, but we thought it was a way of illustrating how new platforms and social networks are changing the way we communicate and live. …

Historically, the most powerful new mediums have changed the way we perceive the world–and how we relate to one another. The telephone, television and Internet have done that in ways we are still processing. But technology itself is neutral. It’s a tool, neither good nor evil. It’s all in how we use it. Twitter itself may continue to rise or it may go away, but its characteristics–real-time conversation, instant links, groups of followers–will affect the platforms that come after. There’s a lesson in that for all of us in the media, for we must adapt to new technology, and not simply by putting the same old wine in new bottles.

I’ve been on Twitter for a short while now, and have almost 2500 followers, which barely makes a dent in the Twittersphere.  It took me a while to enjoy Twitter, but I’ve grown to like it, and Howard’s question got me wondering what I found attractive about Twitter. For me, it fills a vacuum that home officing creates.

Two years ago, I left the corporate world and began working from home — which I love.  No more commutes, lower insurance rates, a fill-up a month at the gas station, no bumper-to-bumper traffic — it’s almost all good.  What I do miss is the opportunity to socialize with people at the office; in easy slang, to hang out at the water cooler.  That socialization was fairly superficial, but we could exchange a few jokes, talk about current events, and let people know about breaking news, all in a short period of time every day.  Home officing removed that easy, light interaction that I missed, until Twitter.

Many people now work outside of traditional office environments, and most of them probably miss that water-cooler conversation as much as I did.  Now we can have it, just as we did at the office, with whomever is gathered around the Twitter water cooler at the moment.  What’s more, the Twitter environment is more egalitarian than the corporate water cooler, where people stratified by rank.  On Twitter, we’re all equals.

Does that make Twitter a communications revolution?  Not really, but it does fill a niche in the modern economy. Twitter won’t replace blogs, news media, or even water coolers, but it does provide that social outlet for a distributed workforce that didn’t exist before.

Update: I got this comment on Twitter from Teresa:

Agree with you re Twitter as someone who is stay at home Mom. Most of my twit friends work at home. Love it as water cooler.

Hadn’t thought about it for stay-at-home moms.  Great point.