When my friend Theyaga first introduced me to Twitter, I was not really thrilled. I thought this was going to be just one of those million useless social networking sites where a stranger will barge in and have the nerve to say “hey! you are cute… Wanna catch up over coffee sometime babe?”

Well! I was wrong! So were many others. Twitter surprisingly, has changed the way internet businesses work in such a short time. From Techcrunch to the latest in the group, Hindu Metro Plus, everyone seems to love the retweet button. Latest update: there are about 1.6 retweet buttons on the prowl on the net, resulting in 6 million actual retweets! A dozen applications are created everyday for twitter users, and half a dozen clones are already in their beta modes.

Just today, someone has come up with a brilliant idea of combining sex with Twitter! A couple of days back, there was a huge argument about who had the real retweet button! Oh yes! It is a separate business to make retweet buttons! There are at least 13 other businesses that run successfully, just creating add-ons for Twitter.

Guy Kawasaki, an entrepreneur genius that many look up to, assures in his recent blog that repeat tweets are, by themselves a great traffic increasing tool! And can you forget the major race between CNN and Ashton Kutcher to be the first to touch a million followers that basically acted as a marketing strategy for CNN itself?

From sharing files to business cards, and running a standalone marketing campaign, there are a million things that you can do on twitter, with new things being found as you read this post.

I bet that when Evan Williams and Riz Stone found Twitter first, they wouldn’t have imagined it will become so huge! Well, it was only recently that they even created Twitter 101 which is a sort of tutorial for new users. Well, it was an eye-opener to me for one! And it was surprising to know that half the trends on twitter like the hashtag and @someone were created by users.

Will the world come to a standstill without twitter? Hell, No! Maybe, a dozen businesses will! But guess what? A few hundred years back, the world was functioning normally without google! A few years before that, without computers! And a few hundred years before that, even without electricity! Will twitter become a necessity? Many would say yes! Many would say no! Which of the above two do I belong to? I am still figuring that one out!

Meanwhile, you can catch me on twitter at www.twitter.com/krithikasuresh.