To Twitter or Not To Twitter? (Or When It's Best Not to Tweet)

There's been a great deal of discussion recently about the impact of Twitter, the social networking tool in which users answer a perennial question "What are you doing right now?" in 140 characters or less.

1. In March, audience tweeting at the South by Southwest Festival led to a collective uprising against a moderator interviewing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

2. In April, an arrested student twittered his way out of an Egyptian jail.

3. And today, an Australian postulated that Twitter would hasten the end of the "bad boss" as employees could share their experiences quickly, thus potentially ending their supervisor's tyranny: http://tinyurl.com/5rl66n

I think it's great that Twitter allowed the student to "get out of jail free," but it's never a good idea to bad mouth one's colleagues. In my opinion, given social networking tools and the ease of forwarding messages, e-mail and Twitter messages are as private as postcards. Use with care and the assumption that your thoughts are public knowledge.

I'd love to hear your experiences in "tweeting." Drop me a line.