The Triumph of '09? A Twitter That Never Sleeps

In a reflective note in yesterday's Sunday London Times Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, wrote about his service representing a human triumph as opposed to a digital one.

"Although we are already a few years into our latest collaboration, this has been the year the world took note of a simple service that has profound promise. For us, it has been a year during which we realized that no matter how sophisticated the algorithms get, no matter how many machines we add to the network, our work is not about the triumph of technology, it is about the triumph of humanity."

Twitter is unquestionably a game changer. It has changed the rules governing what aspect of humanity's triumph deserves 12,983 views -- Tweets run the gamut from groundbreaking digital evidence of continuing protests and clashes in post-election Iran to this photo taken in the New York subway by a user with a private Twitter account, who forgot or did not care enough to realize that Twitpics are public.

pic via @she_gorgeouss

On the more mundane side of the behavioral spectrum, that aspect is more often than not be embarrassing examples of "foot in tweet" disease, like the one below.

And you're wondering perhaps why you got a D?

Twitter has infinite potential to "augment humanity in productive and meaningful ways." But before we move forward into next year, let's focus on how this ability to instantly and constantly communicate in text, links, and images is a recent development and be humbled, albeit briefly, by the day to day things that make that communication remarkable.

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