In what is quite possibly the most spot-on comment about Twitter that BoomTown has heard thus far, Harvard University Professor Jonathan Zittrain said:

“It is easy for Twitter feeds to be echoed everywhere else in the world. The qualities that make Twitter seem inane and half-baked are what make it so powerful.”

Zittrain was being quoted in a New York Times piece today about the use of Twitter by those protesting the election results in Iran, as other means of modern mass communications–such as email, Facebook and texting–got blocked.

In other words, Twitter is so simplistic and silly that it is a perfect digital tool to overthrow a government–which is kind of makes the trendy microblogging service the Forrest Gump of international relations.

Stupid is as stupid does, of course, but what it does illustrate quite smartly is that word of mouth–a concept as old as humanity–remains the most powerful way of distributing information.

While not always reliable, masses of people chattering away has always been the most fluid way in which news has been disseminated and received. Although much of that can be mundane and borderline idiotic, one cannot deny its impact.

What one can deny, though, is the hype that inevitably follows in the wake of every one of these breakthrough technologies like Twitter.

That’s a mistake, because it is how the tools are used by people, more than the tools themselves, that should be the focus.

Still, the media hyping of tech tools as savior is reliably annoying.

Television, of course, changed the presidential elections, as radio had before that.

And, more recently, weren’t mobile phone cameras critical in reporting the bombing in London’s Underground in 2005?

Or wasn’t Facebook key to protests in Burma in 2008?

And, even more profoundly, didn’t the simple fax machine get lauded during the uprising in China’s Tiananmen Square in Beijing as an heroic gadget?

Reported Time magazine in 1989:

“When word of the massacre in Tiananmen Square first reached the University of Michigan, the 250 Chinese students studying there jumped into action: they purchased a fax machine. Daily summaries of Western news accounts and photographs were faxed to universities, government offices, hospitals and businesses in major cities in China to provide an alternative to the government’s distorted press reports. The Chinese students traded fax numbers back home along the computer network that links them around the U.S. The fax brigades at Michigan were duplicated on many other campuses.”

Ironically, hardly anyone today uses a fax machine at all, having moved onto more effective methods of sending out critical news, data, pictures, updates and more.

Like Twitter today, which deserves this moment in the sun, to be sure, as long as it lasts.

Which it won’t, as people move onto the next way to do what they have always done, which is to connect.

As for tomorrow, who knows?

After all, digital life was, is and will always be like a box of chocolates–you never know what you’re gonna get.

With bootleg copies ripped on the Internet or not and with an $87 million opening weekend for “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” it looks like the nerdiest summer movie season ever is off the races.

Hollywood, caught in the digital maelstrom, certainly is fine and dandy making bank by co-opting all the techie themes, gadgets and special effects, with a slate of movies over the next months that are like catnip to geeks of all kinds.

Including BoomTown, for example, which plans to fork over a lot of dough to pay for all the techtastic entertainment that those old media moguls can dish out before they collapse.

Here’s the roster and video trailers of key movies this summer:

Star Trek, May 8

It looks sassy enough with a hot, young cast in what is, like “Wolverine,” a prequel from when the crew of the Starship Enterprise were mere pups.

But one funny quibble comes from a post on the Mania.com blog called “10 Reasons to be Worried About ‘Star Trek’”:

“The New Bridge Looks Like an Apple Store: I love my iPod, but all the Apple Stores I’ve visited are located in the 21st century, not the 23rd. Made of frosted plastic shades and lawn furniture borrowed from the local Pinkberry, the bridge looks built to handle scenes of Kirk negotiating a kegger with the Vulcans more than the sparking explosions and flying bodies of the original.

One can imagine Kirk, trying to sweet-talk his latest alien conquest, and the bridge’s iTunes shuffle mode kicks in.”

Angels & Demons, May 15

Mathematical formulas, hidden puzzles to figure out the path of light through Rome, antimatter, Galileo?

Oh, I am there, except for Tom Hanks’s (playing Robert Langdon) shorter but nonetheless unfortunate haircut from “The Da Vinci Code.”

That and all the glaring but entertaining inaccuracies about science, religion and art from author Dan Brown. As if, I care.

Terminator Salvation, May 21

I am still in mourning over life without Summer Glau, given that the television show, “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles,” might be canceled after lackluster ratings in its second season.

I will have to trade that superb show for the grumpy grumbles of Christan Bale as John Connor in this fourth outing of the killer-cyborgs-from-the-future series of movies.

This one is set in the post-Judgment Day time, so it will have a lot of dusty, oily fighting with machines and grim grimaces about the dire situation (which, to be fair, bites).

Still, as always with my beloved “Terminator” movies, I’ll be baaaaaack.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, June 24

More machines noisily battling it out while humans get stomped. Sometimes, I think these movies have been thought up by people who hate their cellphones.

Still, the first “Transformers” was funny about all the tech, and this one looks like it could be amusing too.

Also, given that I have two young boys, I have played with a lot of Transformer toys since the last movie came out and they really are cool.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, July 15

I. Love. Harry. Potter.

I cannot control this fact and I am a wee bit perturbed by it.

But it is so, especially with all the creepy special effects that seem to get super-creepy in this sixth outing.

These movies just have gotten better and better, as have the young actors who play the main parts, so it’s hard to imagine it not being completely excellent.

Also, the whole pensieve thing rocks. The whole Dumbledore thing, not so much.

[PhotoShopped "Star Trek" publicity still courtesy of Mania.com]

Besides getting, well, the whole country to run today, President Barack Obama is now taking a geek-tastic new ride down Pennsylvania Avenue to his new home, which should more than satisfy his clearly gadget-loving persona.

Obama, who has an ongoing obsessive relationship with his BlackBerry, much as the rest of us do, just got a spanking new presidential limo (pictured above), which the Secret Service is calling the “Beast.”

The last time General Motors (GM) improved on the car was at outgoing President George W. Bush’s 2005 inauguration, which means the struggling automaker is faster at upgrading than Microsoft (MSFT) is with Windows!

But, let us just say, it’s not very Prius-like, despite Obama’s speech today about focusing on the environment.

Indeed, the Cadillac limo has heavy armor five inches thick, run-flat tires, bullet-proof glass, an interior that seals, in case of a chemical attack, and other stuff that is too top secret to apparently reveal.

BoomTown is thinking, um, working Wi-Fi?

Refrigerated cup holders (and more of them, please!)?

A food machine that makes pizza from thin air like on “Star Trek”?

Or, miracle of miracles, that giant Apple (AAPL) iPod embedded in the steering wheel?

Post your suggestions as to what gadgets should be in the President’s new ride below.

As BoomTown did last year, I took to the much-less-crowded floor of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week with tech review kingpin Walt Mossberg and Mossberg Solution columnist Katherine Boehret to get their take on the scene.

Big news for Walt was the Palm Pre launch and the Yahoo Connected TV initiative. For Katie, it was a $2,000 cellphone.

As I also said last year, I jokingly call Walt the “Brangelina” of CES, since he is stopped constantly on the floor by fans who want to meet him in person and those who just want to kibitz with him about the latest and greatest trends in the tech sector.

So, here are this year’s video ruminations:

BoomTown is not saying it’s going to be like watching grass grow.

But 2009 is not exactly getting off to a rousing start this week–with a pair of definitely underwhelming blockbuster tech events taking place that already have more of an air of whimper than of bang to them.

That would be the Consumer Electronics Show, the annual egregious gadgetfest in Las Vegas, and the final appearance by Apple (AAPL) at Macworld in San Francisco.

Of course, while CES tries to fend off the spate of no-one-is-going-to-CES stories–well, I am!–the absence of his digital Holiness and Apple CEO Steve Jobs at Macworld has really generated most of the glumness.

[UPDATE: In a public letter, Jobs says he has a "hormone imbalance" and will stay on as CEO as he recovers.]

Still, the keynote cancellation by Jobs–which started off a new round of is-he-sicker? rumors–is profoundly depressing for Macworld.

After all, it was only two years ago that he practically blew out every geek mind with the introduction of the iPhone there. (See a part of that masterful performance in a video below.)

Thus, it falls to Apple’s SVP of Worldwide Product Marketing, Phil Schiller, to be thrilling–with exactly what, it is still unclear. Rumors abound, none of which are very promising (New iLife and iWork! New Mac mini! Zzzzzzzz).

There is, of course, the vain hope that Schiller will end his speech by uttering Jobs’s patented “one more thing” line, wherein Jobs will walk out (without a walker!), wave and create what would be a genuine frenzy, especially since the last sighting of him was at a yogurt store.

As to CES, there is no big or new product trend to point to, except rumor of a possibly exciting intro of a touchscreen smartphone from Palm (PALM) with a slide-down keyboard. Wheeeee!

Some keynote speakers include Sony (SNE) CEO Sir Howard Stringer, Ford Motor Co. (F) CEO Alan Mulally, Intel (INTC) Chairman Craig Barrett and Cisco (CSCO) CEO John Chambers.

Interestingly, the absence of former Microsoft (MSFT) head Bill Gates at CES–long announced, after more than a dozen times there–caused no weeping and rending of garments, as did Jobs’s nonappearance.

In his place, there will be a keynote by the software giant’s CEO, Steve Ballmer, in which no major announcement seems to be coming.

Still, one can dream, and I desperately hope Ballmer will say “one more thing” and out will come Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Jerry Yang to announce a big honking search deal, finally putting to bed one of 2008’s longest-running soap operas.

What can I say? This is tech and, for us (okay, me, at least), that would be exciting.

Speaking of gripping, I dare you to watch this 2007 iPhone intro performance by Apple’s Jobs and not be deeply impressed by his stylings:

Last night, Walt Mossberg and I hosted yet another annual “What’s Hot and What’s Not in Personal Technology” event for the Churchill Club.

A brief rundown of the Palo Alto gadgetfest show-and-tell: An animatronic singing Elvis freaked out my No. 1 son, Louie, who played an excellent Luke Skywalker/gadget boy for my presentation; our guest gadget geek was Twitter Co-Founder and CEO Evan Williams, who was a delight with a mini-helicopter, a flat-screen reader and a wry wit; Walt showed off the new Blackberry Storm from RIM (RIMM), the alleged Apple (AAPL) iPhone killer (maybe not so much), as well as a fuel cell and more; and our crazy gadget maven, Greg Harper, co-founder of Gadgetoff, went perfectly insane with everything from tiny projectors to a creepy probe to minicellphone towers to USB ties and eyepads.

It was a lot of fun with a packed crowd, even in this econalypse-impacting Silicon Valley.

Here is a rather longish video, which is well worth watching. Yes, BoomTown is–along with Louie and Elvis–wearing a Yahoo (YHOO) hat.

Here’s the video:

[Photo courtesy of Dan Farber of CNET.]

One of our favorite D: All Things Digital speakers, and now a regular attendee, has been Hollywood director, producer, writer and big-cowboy-hat-about-town, Barry Sonnenfeld (pictured here at D6).

So, BoomTown extends belated but Texas-sized congratulations to Sonnenfeld for winning an Emmy earlier this week for directing the pilot of “Pushing Daisies” on ABC.

A gadget freak, as well as an entertainment mogul, Sonnenfeld was very entertaining and insightful about Hollywood’s uncomfortable relationship with technology in his interview with Walt Mossberg in 2006 at D4 (and which you can find here in photos and video).

Backstage at the Emmy Award show, which annually fetes the television industry, Sonnenfeld–who always tries to get Walt and me to ask outrageous questions of speakers at the conference in exchange for walk-ons on his shows and movies (so far, we have not bitten, although he has gotten off some good ones as an audience member in the Q&A part of the interviews)–gave a typically saucy interview to the press about his win.

And, no surprise, Sonnenfeld did manage to deliver one perfect geeky quip, as the music cue started to cut off his speech on Sunday night, which I doubt the glam crowd there got, but was not lost on me:

“Love TV and fear the Internet.”

But–as many readers have requested–they will all be available in their entirety in this column.

Here’s Part 3 of 3 of an interview I did with Thomson Reuters CEO Tom Glocer.

(I posted one video part of the discussion with Glocer every day this week starting Monday and concluding today.)

Thomson Reuters was created by a merger in April that created one of the world’s biggest information companies, mostly aimed at businesses and professionals.

In this video, Glocer talks about how to avoid the fate of the music industry, the troubled economy, his favorite gadgets, new ways to deliver information on a variety of devices, and also takes questions from the audience about machine-trading and possible new acquisitions.

Here he mistreats an animatronic dinosaur, which calls for more Tasering:

And here Jordan checks out tricked-out trucks at CES:

Or, as Walt likes to call it: the Bataan Death March.

But he secretly loves it, as the gathering at the heart of Walt’s universe of gadgets, devices and all things digital.

I jokingly call Walt the “Brangelina” of CES, since he is stopped constantly on the floor by fans who want to meet him in person and those who just want to kibitz with him about the latest and greatest trends in the tech sector.

In this first part of two videos, we see lots of big screens and a pile of other devices at CES, as Walt explains it all for you (Part 2 is here):

In this, the second of two videos from the floor of CES, it is more big screens, more fanboys, more gadgets–just a typical day in the life of Walt (Part 1 is here):

Here’s a video of a bunch of companies showing at CES, which we checked out at the ShowStoppers demo event, including those offering text voicemail, a tracker for kids, dogs and the aging, an air-Guitar Hero, an overpetted animatronic dummy and an inexplicable beer dispenser.

We also finally ran into the man we like to called “Brangelina of CES,” because this is his town this week–also known as Walt Mossberg and our revered co-kahuna of this site. Later today, we will be following Walt around the floor of CES, which should make for an interesting video.

Until then, enjoy this one: