WITH technology converging and mobile phones now more powerful than desktop computers were four years ago, the humble text message is making a comeback as a business productivity tool.

The Irish Blog Awards were held last week in Dublin, and while bloggers won big, the biggest hit on the night was technology for making your text messages public. Before, during and after the event, dozens of people constantly updated the world via text messages while shopping for their glad rags, dropping off their kids, babysitting their in-laws and walking up to accept their awards during the event.

Bebo is so last year; Twitter is now and it's for us grown-ups. Forget smart phones, forget your Blackberry and forget your laptops, you can now work away from the office and still keep in touch and keep updated in 140-character bursts with a service called 'Twitter'. Via text messages, Twitter allows you to update your workmates, your family or the world on what you are up to and allows them in return to send you feedback publicly or privately. It goes back to the very basics and still works well as a lightweight status indicator.

Twitter bridges the gaps in the almost always online lifestyle of the current digital generation. Some people are now offline only while asleep or travelling and Twitter is addressing the latter. For a text message-obsessed nation like Ireland, and with commuting times increasing almost weekly, Twitter is ideal.

Online communications have evolved greatly from basic email to immediate contact using instant messaging technology. These days people and businesses are spending less time emailing and more time interacting using messaging services such as MSN, AIM, Yahoo! , GTalk and dozens more, but once you leave the home and office this ends.

What Twitter offers are short sharp messages that inform people of your presence and what you are up to. People already do this by doctoring their taglines in IM services such as MSN and GMail chat by adding quotes or funny comments to standard away/busy/be right back type activity indicators. Twitter allows you to do the same by turning a text message into a status indicator.

The advantages for a business might not seem obvious at first but then many companies wanted to put a stop to emailing and surfing the web when they became available.

The disadvantages of distraction are outweighed by the massive possibilities when staff are hyper-connected to the rest of the world and are able to collaborate with dozens or hundreds of people with varied expertise.

IT consultant James Corbett, who creates services around Twitter, finds that it has filled a niche that was previously unaddressed for a new generation of business people.

"For many people, Twitter occupies an ideal middle ground between email and instant messaging. Unobtrusive as the former, it has the immediacy of the latter. Because its messages are of a broadcast, asynchronous nature you're free to let them wash over you. Or you can jump into the conversation as you wish."

Twitter can be the new "all staff" email;

no longer can a travelling staff member say they did not get the memo and it can be a much cheaper way of keeping in touch with everything when the only cost involved is the price of text messaging.

Twitter is also an ideal way for on-thefly brainstorming. Come up with an idea in the airport, then send it out as a private message to all company staff and solicit feedback. Feedback can come back from staff from the office and all those who are also travelling. Because they only have the space of a text message to communicate with, the office Polonius has to get to the point, something you can't control by email or in faceto-face meetings.

Corbett highlights another area that many companies might not consider, and that is the convivial aspect of working in an office. For those always away, or working from home a lot, Twitter can help them move back into the fold virtually.

"Companies need to find ways of countering the negative effects associated with on-the-road isolation. The same is true for telecommuters and freelancers.

Twitter can step in as a virtual water cooler, a replacement venue for the gossip and news, and the 'ambient socialisation' and bonding that is so important to a functioning team."

While Twitter will not radically transform a business, it can work as a glue to strengthen the bonds between staff members who see each other less and less as the world of business changes with technology.

All it takes is one text to be a Twit.

www. twitter. com dmulley@tribune. ie www. mulley. net