microblog

Microblogging is a form of blogging that allows users to write brief text updates (called microposts -- usually less than 200 characters) and publish them, either publicly on a Web site and/or distributed to a private group of subscribers. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, e-mail, MP3 or the Web.

Popular services include Twitter (launched in July 2006), Jaiku, and Pownce; popular social networking websites Facebook and MySpace also have a micro-blogging feature, called "status update".