[mvalente]

Early adoption was due to it being an extension to the IM Away messages. After that, especially after users started to use @x as a form of addressing, it basically became IRC 2.0, without the problems of installing IRC clients, having netsplits, being kicked, etc, etc.

-- MV

[InclinedPlane]

And most especially of having to keep connected all the time. Twitter is somewhat similar to web based IRC "in the cloud" but it also fills an important niche that IRC doesn't. IRC is an N to N broadcast medium with a finite number of channels. Twitter is an N to M broadcast medium with an effectively limitless number of channels.