Perhaps eight or ten years ago I had a Polish girlfriend and visited her in Poland and lived with her friends for a bit. I noticed how they mainly used the Inte

Perhaps eight or ten years ago I had a Polish girlfriend and visited her in Poland and lived with her friends for a bit. I noticed how they mainly used the Internet. They had an ICQ-like polish IM (GaduGadu) running and they ONLY changed the status messages on that thing to inform people what they were doing. I found it amusing at that time. Later I saw Twitter, and it was very similar. So yes ,it does solve a problem: Broadcast short pieces of information to friends without having to start a conversation. At least I think that was the original idea.