TIME Magazine has a terrific article about how Twitter is changing us. It’s well-written, and author Steven Johnson looks at Twitter not just as a fad tool for celebrities, but also as a platform that is changing how we are interconnected. A sample:

But watch a live mass-media event with Twitter open on your laptop and you’ll see that the futurists had it wrong. We still have national events, but now when we have them, we’re actually having a genuine, public conversation with a group that extends far beyond our nuclear family and our next-door neighbors.

What’s most interesting to me, however, is how Johnson cites Twitter, TiVo, Wikipedia, America Online, Amazon, and a few other companies and products to make a point about American innovation:

We didn’t build the Prius or the Wii, but if you measure global innovation in terms of actual lifestyle-changing hit products … the U.S. has been lapping the field for the past 20 years.

Johnson then goes on to talk about the difference between building the mousetrap and perfecting it. It’s thought-provoking stuff.

Photo by thebarrowboy (Flickr).