Twitter has been popping up all over the mainstream media lately, but how do you explain it to someone who isn’t even remotely tech savvy?

On Friday morning I went to the doctor for a check up, and I ended up with the new partner to my family doctor whom I had never seen before.  She asked me what I do for a living, and I told her I was a tech blogger.  The first words out of her mouth was “What’s Twitter?!?”  She looked like someone who had just been thrown a ring after falling off the Titanic, she finally had someone she could ask about this thing she kept hearing about on the news.

While we have explained the service before in What Is Twitter, it is still not always an easy concept to get across.  This cartoon from Current TV is oddly one of the best explanations I’ve seen.

For those of you unfamiliar with “The Fail Whale”, that is an image that Twitter users see any time the site is acting up.

While I love Twitter, and use it daily (my account is @seanpaune), I do wonder sometimes why some people share so much about their lives.  My Tweets are typically not of a personal nature about myself, although I will share common things, but other things I see go by as I watch the streams make me ask why someone felt compelled to share whatever they just said.

The cartoon is meant in good nature, and we do still recommend using the service, but you do have to wonder why at times.