Twittering
So - do you Tweet?
The verb "to tweet" may not be in the dictionary quite yet. But it's becoming so widespread its entry must surely be a matter of time.
It means to post a message to your virtual friends, via the website.
People can choose to receive your messages - or you can invite them to follow you. And you decide whose messages you want to receive in return.
The message can be about whatever you want. The only rule is - it can't be any longer than 140 characters.
If you don't Tweet, I can hear you rolling your eyes. You're thinking, "What is the point?"
Fans say - you can tell many people what you're doing or thinking in one simple message. You can ask for information, or handy tips, from your circle of friends. You can set up impromptu meetings, or let people know you're in the area for coffee or a pint.
There's nothing unique about this. Facebook and other social network sites let you tell your friends what you're doing with their status updates.
Blogs let you express your thoughts at length - and let other people react to them.
But who says forms of communications have to be unique?
We don't stop sending Christmas cards because we have email. We didn't stop letter writing when we got the phone.
And there is one point of difference with Twitter. It's immediate. It's direct. And at just 140 characters, it enforces a certain brevity of communication.
So much for the social chit-chat.
As we discussed on the programme last week, it's also developing a business dimension.
The ´óÏó´«Ã½, and other news organisations, use it to alert followers to breaking or developing stories.
Companies like Starbucks use it to pass on information, or answer their customers' questions or observations.
And that will annoy some out there. Some social networkers think Facebook has become too corporate, with its adverts and its icons of support for commercial products.
Twitter, they thought, was above that.
But companies with things to say will always find ways of using the most modern forms of communications.
So why do we use Twitter on Working Lunch?
My colleague Zoe looks after the programme's own Tweets - you can sign up to them at . She uses them to tell you what we're doing, and ask you what you think we should be doing.
But I also send out my own Tweets - which you can subscribe to at . (Bafflingly, hundreds of people have already done so.)
In fact, I sent out a few messages from the studio in an idle moment during yesterday's programme.
Some of you thought it must be an imposter; let me assure you, no-one else would want to pretend to be me ...
I'll try to send some more today.
Some of you will be amused. Some will be informed. Some of you will think it's just drivel.
That's great. This isn't about me blethering on. It's also about your response - whatever that may be.
And it also about the nature of innovation. New ideas take root and develop when people try them out, test their limits, and see how they work for them. That's what progress is about - answering that question, "what happens if? ..."