Twitter = IRC v. 2?

It kind of dawned on me recently what Twitter really is. It’s not blogging, or IM, or texting. It’s really the worlds largest IRC channel, only with some finer grained control over who you see and pay attention to.
I’m still a bit skeptical about its long term prospects, but I think I understand it a bit better now. And even though I’m skeptical, I find myself using it. So is it the Next Big Thing or the next CB radio? Stay tuned…