That is the question that seems to be on everyone’s mind these days. Twitter, Pownce, and Jaiku all have potential solutions for it. Facebook even has something to help you answer that question. Most of these websites give you multiple input methods. You can update via mobile phone text messaging, mobile web, a website interface, and Twitter even gives you the ability to update via IM.

But while they all allow you to tell the world, your friends, and your groups exactly what you are doing at the moment, does anyone really care? Sure I can tell all of my Facebook contacts that I’m writing a blog entry, but is any one of them going to actually go to my website and read it? I can let people know on Pownce that a new episode of Power of Information is available for download. Will someone actually go and download the latest episode?

This concept of up to the minute “blogging” seems be one of the “next big things” of the Web 2.0 movement. While there is a novelty to it, you have to wonder, is it just taking up bandwidth and time? I can see how on Pownce, with the use of groups you could sign up an entire staff of programmers and make them update it regularly, but would it actually solve any problems? Is there a problem to solve? Is this not what instant messaging is for?

I think this concept really is a neat one, but I can’t seem to figure out what a truly viable use is for this kind of application other than public instant messaging.

How are you utilizing these services?  What are you getting out of Twitter, Pownce, or even Jaiku?