I wrote a tweet this morning about some of the responses I've gotten to questions I've asked to some rather promenent users.  I made mention that almost everyone is willing to give 140 characters, it's a small investment.  People walking down the street will barely give you a look, but in-person communication greatly differs from over-the-internet communication.  Even Steve Jobs has been known to send a less than 140 character email back to random customers asking questions.  Seems like 140 is the magic number.

You could argue that 2 way pagers and SMS were the beginning of the sub-140 revolution, but what differs about Twitter is the public nature of the service.  You can't text someone without their phone number.  You can message anyone with a Twitter account and they would see it (of course if their account is private you wouldn't see a response).

Businesses have slowly adopted the public facing service for instant support.  I've personally received support from @XBoxSupport, @TWCableHelp, and others along the way with great success.  Breaking news spreads through the world quicker than the Associated Press and TV.  Both examples utilize less than 140 characters.  Newspaper, magazine, blog writers all the same are learning to pack their headlines in less than 140 characters to garner attention and stand out in the ultra-fast flow of information.

The sub-140 culture has opened up a new era of support, both personal and professional.  So the next big question is, when will words per minute be replaced with characters per minute?