Twitter is frequently lauded as a triumph of simplicity. “It should be Twitter simple” can be heard punctuating discussions around new product development.

To the contrary, I think Twitter is complicated as hell. Explaining the value proposition to an internet-savvy person accustomed to a service like Facebook can draw the same blank stares as explaining it to your grandparents. The 140-character limit feels arbitrary and limiting. Twitter search, a product with incredible value, remains hidden from the general public. Dozens of clients and hundreds of Twitter-based websites add to the cacophony.

Part of the reason it’s so difficult to explain is that it’s not a website and it doesn’t have an explicit purpose, meaning the conventional vocabulary to describe online properties fails here. It can be better seen as a medium of communication where the value proposition is completely contingent on how the person chooses to put this medium to use.

All this, just to say that I am loving the Cocoa IV drip from @scottstevenson and @cocoadevcentral even though it represents a departure from my approach of only following people that I’m somehow personally acquainted with. I also have a thing going on with the robot from @popurls, who’s got some jokes.