eComm Earlier this week, the Twitter sickness made a mockery of one tech conference. And now it's made a mockery of another.

Today, at eComm2008 in Mountain View, the communications elite couldn't stop talking about Twitter - otherwise known as Web 2.0rhea.

Those who couldn't stop talking about Twitter included Twitter lead architect, Blaine Cook, who reminds us of Susan Dey in her Partridge Family heyday.

"Blaine Cook is awesome," said conference MC Lee Dryburgh. "He invented Twitter."

"Actually, I didn't invent Twitter," said Blaine Cook. "Jack Dorsey, our CEO, invented Twitter."

Naturally, Blaine Cook's Twitter presentation was diced into 140-character sound bytes - just like Twitter.

And in the end, these sound bytes added up to something close to nothing - just like Twitter - or Larry Lessig - take your pick.

"You and me and everyone we know. This is what Twitter is about," Blaine Cook said. "It's also what the Internet is about."

"The Internet is a simple system."

"The web is a simple system."

"Email is a simple system."

"Simple systems are awesome."

"Twitter is a simple system."

"Did you become rich when Twitter was sold?" Dryburgh asked Cook.

"It hasn't been sold," Cook replied.

But Cook's Twitter-like Twitter talk wasn't as Twitter-like as the Twitter-like talk delivered by another Twitter lover: Jabber's Peter Saint-Andre.

His Web2.0rhea came out faster than Cook's Web2.0rhea.

But not as fast as he would have liked.

"I would have done it faster, but I have the stomach flu," he said.

But Lee Dryburgh didn't let the Digg generation down. He gave the entire conference Web2.0rhea.

At eComm, each and every speech is less than 15 minutes. Some less than ten.

There's even a countdown clock at the back of the room.

And if you keep spewing when the clock runs out, you get booted from the stage.

Think the Academy Awards.

What we don't understand is the poll Lee Dryburgh took just before Blaine Cook's speech.

He asked the audience how many people had heard of Twitter, and dozens raised their hands.

Then he asked how many were addicted.

How many?

Five or six.

Maybe less. ®

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