Twitterary Criticism: 'This Stuff Is Wizard'

Jon Stewart: "Why is Congress and the media jumping on this?"

Samantha Bee: "OK, because we're rotting corpses grabbing for any glimmer of relevance, Jon, hoping at some point one of these retarded things will be the vine that can rescue us from this quicksand. And don't think you're immune, Cable Boy."

The Daily Show's recent poke at the current Twitter fixation among media types and government officials is good for some self-aware laughs.

My GOVERNING co-worker Ellen Perlman also looked at how some state and local officials are using -- and sometimes misusing -- the mini-messaging service in her latest biweekly Technology e-letter. One of Ellen's peeves: screen-wasting personal musings by people who take Twitter's defining question -- "What are you doing?" -- a little too literally. "If someone feels the need to wake up and smell the coffee, then tell the world he just smelled the coffee, narcissism is at play," she writes.

But Ellen also says Twitter offers more than that:

"[M]any users, including government officials and a growing number of government agencies, have twisted Twitter's mission in positive ways. Instead of telling the world that they just dusted the credenza, they're using Twitter--along with Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and other consumer-oriented 'social media' channels--to publish information for constituents or colleagues. In return, these officials receive a flow of feedback, links and ideas that can lead to improved service or teach them something they might not have learned another way. Sometimes that input comes from the general public, and sometimes it comes from co-workers or peers across the country, depending on who decides to 'follow' (or subscribe to) your feed and whose feeds you choose to follow back."

As Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak tells Ellen, "I love that with a few clicks on a keyboard, I can communicate with a lot of people and hear back instantly.... It's a lot faster than door knocking. It's the most efficient way to get to the most people directly that I know of. And I kind of have fun doing it."