Is Twitter a Chat Room?

What do you guys think of Twitter? Is Twitter a chat room? I’m surfing around the web right now, and there are many bloggers who say that Twitter is a chat room.

This question popped in my mind because some of my FEU- East Asia College schoolmates say that using Twitter inside our computer laboratories is not allowed. I’m not sure if the reason is because they consider it as a chat room.

But is Twitter really a chat room?

According to Wikipedia.org,

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send updates (otherwise known as tweets) which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.

Twitter is a free social networking… - it’s just like MySpace and Friendster, which are allowed in our computer laboratory.

…micro-blogging service that allows users to send updates… - it’s a micro-blogging service, and that’s exactly the definition I’d give if you ask me. It’s just a tool for posting updates about what you do or how you feel, and it’s not for the purpose of chatting.

According to Twitter itself,

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

I don’t consider Twitter as a chat room. I only use it to Twit updates about what I’m doing, how I feel, and how I think. I use it just like a mini-blog.

But… it resembles a chat room in some way because we can send replies to other Twitter users. And when two Twitter users consequently exchange replies, they are chatting to each other. Admittedly, I do that sometimes when I have to talk to a friend that I don’t have any other form of contact with. And hey, it’s not something right to do.

So whatcha guys think about Twitter being considered a chat room?