By Ms. TwentySomething

I was listening to NPR's All Things Considered recently, when host Melissa Block brought on tech reporter Omar Gallaga to talk online trends and cell phone gadgets.

Particularly interesting? The 60-plus granny who called in to ask about Twitter. She said she tried to keep hip to the high-tech tools her kids and colleagues are using, and wanted to know more about Twitter.

According to their website, Twitter is "a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?"

But it's oh so much more than that. Twitter is kind of a catch-all spot for any short communication, so that you can update your friends to all the mundane things you're up to ("washing dishes") to the really exciting and newsworthy ("birthing first child").

Messages are confined to 140 characters, so these memos are short and sweet.

Your Twitter page, should you be so brave as to tweet, shows a photo of you with lines of what you're doing, along with your friends and "followers" (those keeping track of your messages).

Unless you're online 24/7, Twitter isn't a super easy way to stay in touch. But with options to text Twitters via cell, it is pretty easy to update.

Omar posted his Twitter tips to NPR's All Tech blog.

And if you're not sure whose tweets you'd like to follow, there are plenty of applications to help you find new friends, such as Twubble, which will scan your friends on Twitter to find other users who you might enjoy following.

I love Fireland, who uses Twitter as a segue to hilarious (if sometimes really non-PC) one-liners.

You can learn more about the whole online social media revolution by reading this New York Times magazine article called Brave New World of Digital Intimacy.

And of course, if you're looking for more advice, you can always follow Omar...on Twitter.

So. Will you Twitter?

Here's a story from the Boston Globe about Twittering.