The two most interesting pieces I’ve read on Twitter talk about how it’s a thin “presence stream” that helps folks in a social network keep at least minimally up to date with each other so that there’s not so much catching up to do when they next meet face-to-face (or, I guess, when they next have a long telephone conversation). One of the articles talked about Twitter as a kind of “Frank Capra movie,” which struck me as both off-the-wall and strangely perceptive. Given what we are learning about “social intelligence” and the value of that kind of personal contact, I’m convinced there are massive teaching-and-learning opportunities there.

I’ve also found it very useful for just-in-time tech support, as it was the day I tweeted and asked if anyone knew an easy way to stream video live over the Internet. In five minutes, three folks tweeted back recommending uStream.tv–and a good final projects presentation became great because of all the participation that occurred over the uStream webcast.

It’s all down to the network,in my experience: Twitter and all these other Web 2.0 services enable (empower?) certain kinds of network effects, but they don’t create the network all by themselves. Some assembly required!