Twitter: just a light chirping sound or is it more meaningful than that?

I've become so involved in Twitter of late, I was compelled to see how this social media phenomenon is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary.

My dictionary is only a few years old but old enough to define 'twitter' as v. 1 (esp. of a bird) make a series of light chirping sounds. 2 talk rapidly in an anxious or nervous way. n. 1 an act of twittering. 2 colloq. a tremendously excited state.

While there is no mention of the social media application called Twitter, I think the above definitions are applicable enough.

This week I decided to 'tweet' some comments to ABC's Q&A program while watching the debate from the Melbourne Writers Festival.  Having unsuccessfully tweeted live on the screen in previous weeks of Q&A, I realised most comments that are shown are often comical, witty one-liners.  A light chirping sound if you will.

Sure enough, when I employed this approach to my own tweet, it was up in lights on the screen a few moments later.

Other tweets of course are more serious, often fired off as a rapid, 'anxious' succession of news updates on any matter of interest as events are unfolding.  And it's not only professional journalists delivering the news in this fashion but members of the public as well, often doing some of the work of the journalists for them.

Last week I received a tweet from @SBS News asking for anyone who happens to be in Tripoli to call the news room to do an interview.  Not long afterwards, SBS was reporting events on the rebels' invasion of the Libyan capital using information acquired through interviews via Twitter and mobile phone with people who were there watching it happen.

The week before that I saw a rather anxious tweet from ABC journalist Sally Sara in Kabul.  Sara briefly described her concern after hearing an early-morning explosion in the distance and what the coming day might hold for her and those around her.  She sounded anxious and nervous.  Reading the news as it was happening, described by someone who was there, made me feel a bit the same way.

Based on my so-far limited experience with Twitter, I don't think the Oxford Dictionary needs to modify its definition of 'twitter' much, if at all, to accommodate the latest social media craze.