---
title: "Twitter is the New finger"
categories:
- culture
content-tags:
- fave
- technology
- communication
- history
- web
---

Back in the day, we used to leave a small file named `.plan` in our Unix home directories, which others could read over [port 79][1] with the [`finger`][2] command.  It was a useful for quick status updates, to find out what people were working on (or where they were off to) without pestering them.  [John Carmack][3] popularized it as a [proto-blog][4], and the IM phenomenon brought a similar function mainstream via presence notification with custom status messages.  But I've been frustrated at how difficult it is to log and broadcast a group's or even my own status messages.

Enter [Twitter][5], basically an implementation of finger using the contemporary infrastructure of HTML and RSS over HTTP, with IM and SMS tie-ins.  Now [I have a .plan][6] again.  Maybe someday [Ambient Devices][7] will build me an LED sign to display it in a more physical manner.

   [1]: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1288.txt
   [2]: http://www.eff.org/Net_culture/Net_info/EFF_Net_Guide/EEGTTI_HTML/eeg_133.html
   [3]: http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/johnc/
   [4]: http://doom-ed.com/blog/category/doom-ed/john-carmack/
   [5]: http://twitter.com
   [6]: http://twitter.com/gerwitz
   [7]: http://www.ambientdevices.com/
