Twitter is a micro-blogging platform brought to you by the evil geniuses behind original-flavor Blogger: Evan Williams, Biz Stone, and Jack Dorsey.

The concept is simple and has been beaten to death by the media all this month: answer the question “What are you doing?” in 140 characters or less, and follow the updates of other people you’re interested in.

To claim that as the definition of Twitter is akin to defining America as a democratic union of states. You leave out all the fun bits of the story.

The most immediate analog to Twitter is the Facebook status box, and many people who use both networks elect to sync their Twitter to Facebook, doubly updating their status with regularity. I had arrived by day two:

is apparently writing an Elliott Smith hip hop tribute song? I don’t know. It’s really confusing.

As the week pressed on I continued to follow people – friends, friends of friends, media figures. The more I followed, the more I began to understand – Twitter is an ongoing, multi-part, real-time conversation – and I could jump in with a response at any time.

After feeling things out with friends, I wrote a message @jacobtwop and he @krisis back at me! I posed a question @AmandaPalmer and she replied, as did Neil Gaiman to another @query.

Week one ended with me completely sold on the power of Twitter to connect famous and infamous folks to their fans. But did it really matter what I was tweeting about myself?

Check back for the next installment, in which my idle interest starts to become a habit. And, while you wait, follow me on Twitter.