Thanks for watching if you caught the short but sweet segment. We talked about the new design’s obvious influence from Twitter in the form of the big “What’s on your mind?” box smack in the middle of the page. If you haven’t seen it yet: keep checking. The update is rolling out slowly to all Facebook users.

(You know what I love about SXSW? I banged this post out on my iPhone at a party called Pastries and Pasties that featured both cupcakes and burlesque and no one even noticed

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Mayor David Miller does it, so does TTC Chair Adam Giambrone, even Toronto Raptors superstar Chris Bosh is on Twitter. So what is this latest social media application and why should you care? Watch News Hour Final tonight as we try and explain twitter madness and we want to hear from you. Send Leslie a tweet @lrobertsglobal.

It was a lot of fun to tape and great working with such a professional crew — I think I was in and out of the building in under half an hour including getting made up and unmade! Thanks to the whole team for the tour of the studio, which included hastily snapped photos of the control and audio rooms:

Global TV Control Room

Global TV Audio Booth

Earlier today I thought I would use Twitter to find out how people defined Twitter, and I got to use a few of their thoughts on the show (although sadly without attribution). I thought I would share my favourite responses here (in no particular order):

• sebchorney: “Like MSN for grownups”; or “Like being in an open-concept office, except you choose the friends &coworkers at the other desks.” Beyond warm & fuzzy, the true key benefit is the tremendously high value of distilled information received from trusted filters.
• targetvacations: connect, learn, meet, develop, engage and share > people, ideas, opinions, facts & thoughts on your own terms.
• Brydon: twitter is a half-suppressed laugh; a fit of laughter partially restrained; a titter; a giggle.
• sulemaan: “It’s like your Facebook status update but also a means to communicate w/ others like an instant messanger.” (For me anyways.)
• dwhelan: Twitter is text messaging between u & the world, a global conversation where you choose the time, place and people to listen to.
• coachkiki: Cross between overheard cell phone conversations/water-cooler/code/broken telephone.Often interesting/useful/informative. Big + great way to become aware and exposed to people, industry happenings/breaking news might not otherwise get.All in 140
• colinbowern: twitter is the public water cooler conversation
• nsedef: Real-time conversations leading to customer & industry insights direct from the source, & gauge of cons/biz news trends & buzz.
• kenseto: Twitter = open sourced conversations
• PalmerstonGroup: Twitter is to facebook what French Fries are to potatoes. Quicker, tastier, more fun, less nutritious.
• jasoneano: Newsfeed for relevant professional, community & breaking global stories & a personal forum to expand the reach of my own purpose
• bwinton: Twitter is like a cross between a chat room and a weblog, with fewer pictures of peoples’ cats, and more interesting thoughts.

If you’d like to see some more definitions, check out the Twitter hashtag #definetwitter (hashtags, a word preceeded by a hash symbol, are a way of organizing tweets around a given topic and making them easier to find later).

Here’s the video (thanks @astroboy!):

Thanks for watching!

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