Twitter @ 5, still gaining traction here

“just setting up my twttr”
With that irreverent post on March 21, 2006, which broke the rules of standard English diction, started the journey of micro-blogging site Twitter, which now boasts of about 200 million users and a valuation of $10 billion.

On Monday, Dorsey told his 1.6 million Twitter followers — 140 characters at a time — how he worked alongside the two other co-founders, Biz Stone and Evan Williams, to set up Twitter that let registered users post 140 character messages to their profile.

In India, with a user base of around 4.5 million at the last count in mid-2010, Twitter is still an evolving online behavior that gives tremendous scope to capture the attention of millions of users but demands one sacrifice — privacy, as we know it.

“The Ambani’s don’t use it (Twitter),” said BG Mahesh, a technology entrepreneur who keeps a close watch on the the evolution of internet in India and the nature adoption of various online social networking sites.

“Anand Mahindra is more of an exception among his peers in corporate world when it comes to Twitter.”

Social networking site Facebook is more popular among youth in India, at least for now.

According to Mahesh, it is celebrities and politicians who are making the most use of Twitter for now.

Early adopters of Twitter in India offer traversed a path of trail and error that was and continues to be interesting to watch.

Mahindra, vice-chairman of Mahindra & Mahindra is among the few Twitter-enlightened corporate heads, who uses the medium to communicate with his employees, customers and friends. He would also have gone through a learning curve that marked the journey of Indian Twitter explorers.

Inadvertently, he once shared the personal phone number of one of his close relatives, something for which his well-wishers railed him.

Shashi Tharoor, former United Nations under-secretary general for communications and public information and former minister of state - external affairs, is a famous what-not-to-post-on-Twitter example. His micro-blogging adventures literally cost him his job.

Tharoor’s reference to economy air travel to “cattle class,” at time when the government was implementing austerity measures earned him the wrath both his politicians and common public.

The final nail in the coffin of Tharoor’s political life came in the form of a tweet from Lalit Modi, the former vice-president of the Board of Cricket Control of India and credited with being the architect of the highly successful Indian Premier League.

Modi, now under investigation by tax authorities, uses Twitter to reach out to his supporters and journalists.

Globally, Twitter has had its evangelists and critics.

In 2009, when thousands of protesters marched against the government in Moldova, Western observers called it the Twitter Revolution as they believed Twitter played a critical aide to the demonstrators in organising.    

During protests in Iran and Egypt this year, too, Twitter was claimed to have played a critical role in organising the widespread popular protests.

So much so, Mark Pfeifle, a former senior US government official, even suggested that Twitter should be nominated for Nobel prize for Peace.

If Charlie Sheen’s record of getting 3 million Twitter followers in just three weeks is anything to go by, the micro-blogging site’s ability to mobilise fans is clearly above doubt.