Twitter is quickly becoming (has become?) a mainstream technology for the geek crowd. As such, the social norms and taboos start to be explored and established. More than just "liveblogging" or text messaging, tweets take on a new communication form. Just like a ringing cell phone in church (or answering one when you're in the middle of a face-to-face interaction), there will be a slow gelling of appropriate Twitter behavior. Because - as we all know - "common sense" is anything but common...

Try teaching a class when half the students are banging away on their phone keyboards. Eventually, society will evolve some kind of rule for behavior but in the meantime I just grin and bear it.

Good point Todd... only a twit would be rude enough to twitter without regard for others (or their own understanding/learning :-)

Anything which interrupts the concentration/learning of yourself or others, be it by answering a phone in a conference, doing email in a meeting (on laptop or handheld), interrupting a conversation you are having with someone to check an incoming text message, or answering a phone call (even if it is your boss) are all extremely rude things to do and twittering is no different.

Having decided to ‘have a go’ I added Twitterrific to my iPhone tonight! I’ll make sure I respect my principles and will also add No Twittering to my meeting/workshop/presentation ground rules slide...

One technique I've seen used just once so far is for the presenter, via Twittermail, to set up some tweets relevant to elements of their presentation that fire out during their talk (twitter mail allow you to schedule the publication).

The tweets usually include a reminder to those twitterers in the room that the presenter is there with them and they can ask him questions with their VOICE.

I thought it was kind of effective, but a bit akin to shouting at people to get them to pay attention.