Twitter: Mystery of the 140 Characters

I regularly post on a social networking site called Twitter. If you want the whole truth, I'm probably addicted to checking 'tweets.' Does that make me a 'twitter-holic'? But I digress.

Twitter is a free micro-blogging site where you can share thoughts and ideas with others using a maximum of 140 characters. That's it - 140 characters!

You can read more about Twitter here, find all sorts of associated applications here and get a start on Twitter vocabulary terms here.

So, why 140 characters? I don't know! I haven't found a definitive answer anywhere online.

This piqued my curiousity so I posed the question on Twitter and got a couple of interesting answers. One very plausible response came from the CEO of As Was and another great explanation came from the Insatiable Geisha.

Both said their replies were speculation. Does anyone really know? Would you care to venture a guess? I'd love to hear from you!

And if you hold the key the TRUE meaning of the 140 characters, please clue me in!