It occurred to me, sometime this afternoon, that it would be really cool if I could show a live, real-time display of incoming Twitter messages during some presentations that I’m going to be giving about Web 2.0 technologies in Moscow and Rome this spring. I suspect that some of this would be so new, for the audiences that will be listening to me, as to be mind-boggling. But even if the audience is already familiar with Twitter, I thought it would be useful for them to see it in action.

I’ve got three different AIR-based Twitter client programs — Twhirl, Twitterific, and Snitter — so I spent a few minutes with each of them … and immediately ran into a problem: if you’re going to show things to an audience in a typical conference environment (i.e.,where some members of the audience may be sitting a hundred feet away from the podium where the speaker is located, and where the display screen may be far too small), you want to display everything in a font size of 24 points, 36 points, or larger.

Unfortunately, Twhirl’s standard configuration settings allow font sizes no larger than 16 points; Twitterific has no options at all for changing the font size; and Snitter allows each user to use “style” commands that theoretically allow arbitrary font sizes, but seem totally unprepared for what I was trying to do.

I mentioned my frustrations in a Twitter message late this afternoon, not expecting anyone to agree, disagree, or even acknowledge my comment. But within ten minutes, two different Twitterers had posted a message suggesting a crude, but better-than-nothing way of enlarging all text on my Mac screen to the point where someone seated in the back of the conference room could read it.

About ten minutes after that, another Twitter “follower” sent me a 152-line PHP program that would display Twitter messages in a whatever font size I wanted. I haven’t tried that program yet, because it requires coordinating with my webmaster to upload this PHP script to our PHP server … but I was astonished by the generosity and the speedy responsiveness of this Twitter-follower whose messages I’ve seen, but whom I’ve never met in person.

Even more amazing: about 10 minutes after I got the message with the PHP program, the developer of Twhirl — Marco Kaiser — sent me a Twitter message, asking for more details about what I was trying to accomplish. After a couple more completely open Twitter exchanges, he offered to send me a (free!) customized version of Twhirl that would support larger font sizes.

I want to emphasize that my situation today was not unique: I’ve seen half a dozen Twitter conversations in the past month where (a) someone twittered about a problem that was important to them, and they couldn’t figure out how to solve on their own, and (b) within minutes, three or four other Twitter users have offered practical solutions based on their own experience. Not all of these situations have been techie/geeky problems; at least one of them involved questions about a complex visa issue.

Of course, that’s what friends do for each other … except that Twitter seems to be creating networks and communities of “virtual” friends who may or may not have every met each other in “real life” (RL). I’ve now got 205 “followers” on my Twitter network, and I would guess that I’ve only met a dozen of them in RL; others might know me from the books or articles I’ve written, but I suspect a number of my Twitter friends have begun “following” me simply because we seem to have common areas of interest.

I know that a large number of people will never see what I’ve just said about all of this, because they feel that blog postings like this are irrelevant, trivial, or somehow unworthy of their attention. And others will read this blog posting and shrug, because they think that Twitter — and various other social networks — are irrelevant, trivial, or somehow unworthy of their attention. That’s too bad, but I decided, long ago, that it’s pointless to try to change the opinions of Luddites on topics like this. They can stay in their unconnected world, and my networked friends and I can continue to prosper and profit by taking advantage of the networks.

If you’re the slightest bit curious about all of this, check out my recent blog, “Twittering in plain English.” And if you’re not curious, that’s fine — go back to sleep. My twittering friends and I will leave you so far behind that you won’t even know where you are when you finally wake up.