Twitter's Stone talks search, changing the 'Net

Twitter Inc. is arguably changing the way people socialize and communicate online.

When Lance Armstrong's bike was stolen, he put out an APB to the "twitterati." When NASA scientists make a discovery about Mars, they turn to Twitter to get the word out to avid space enthusiasts. And when average, everyday people have good or bad news to share, they alert their friends and family, not always by telephone or even e-mail, but by Twitter.

Biz Stone, a co-founder of the company that offers a mixture of social networking and microblogging tools, says Twitter has the potential to significantly expand the Internet and the way we use it. Twitter, he says, is about connections and information. But he also goes so far as to say that San Francisco-based Twitter is also about the "triumph of humanity."

In a conversation with Computerworld, Stone talked about extending Twitter's search capabilities, his favorite Twitter topics, making Twitter more mobile and the company's commercialization plans.

How many times a day do you Twitter? I only do it two to three times a day. If I'm doing something out of the norm, and I think, 'Oh, this is interesting.' I'll twitter about it. But on a day-to-day basis, I do it less.

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