Will I look a twit if I Twitter?

It is somewhat unfortunate that interesting web innovations seem to have stupid or nerdy names. One that is mounting a rousing chorus is Twitter.

I've got to confess I'm new to this game, but I'm told by the web savvy types in our team at Flightglobal.com (largest aviation portal in the world OK) that Twitter is an up and coming thing. Airline Business will be Tweeting soon (I kid you not).

What is Twitter? Who does it? Why do they do it? Does anyone care?

We'll explore these questions ourselves in the coming weeks.

For now, I will share with you the airlines that are busy Tweeting today:

The bird boys at British Airways;

The Texan hens of Southwest;

The JetBlue eagles;

The doves of Delta;

and the chirpy chaps at Virgin America.

Do you know of any others? Is your airline planning the join the club?

Of the above, JetBlue is sqwarking the loudest it seems. It has over 17,000 "followers". Now that's rather a large number of individuals interacting with this brand.

So, is this a powerful web medium that allows brands to connect to their customers? Or a gimmick?