You can now update your Facebook status via Twitter.

After the launch of an official Twitter application on Facebook, observations on several blogs noting the similarity between Twitter updates and Facebook statuses, and even a quickly-silenced hack for integrating the two services, blognation Japan reports that the much-anticipated integration of the two platforms has begun.

Previously, you could update your Twitter through Facebook; now the communication goes in both directions.

Facebook has also taken steps to solve the problem of Twitter updates flooding the already-crowded News Feed on its homepages:

Please be aware if you Twitter often, the updates are NOT automatic. The Twitter app in Facebook updates approximately every 30 minutes or so which means if you Twitter often, every update may not immediately appear right away.

Note: I think it does update both Twitter and Facebook status immediately if you post your update via the Twitter FB app itself, instead of Twitterrific or the like.

It appears that the only way to disable this new feature, once you've enabled it, is to go to the Facebook application settings page, edit your settings for Twitter, and uncheck the box that says "Status Updates: Application may update my status without notifying me." To re-enable it, you have to go back to the Twitter app itself.

Also, this does not solve the problem of updates that would be nonsensical outside of Twitter (e.g. direct messages to your Twitter friends).

Definitely a work-in-progress, but updates that fit within the vanilla "status update" paradigm will work well.

For example, my latest update — "Going to Hard Times Cafe for chili and to meet some local entrepreneurs." — fits seamlessly into both Facebook's "Joe is ..." and Twitter's "What are you doing?" contexts.

Today, Twitter also announced a way to follow and find out about other people on Twitter.

This is really nice, for people who have a crippled browser (e.g. JavaScript is disabled) or are using their phone or IM. To follow someone, simple send an update like follow josephgrossberg.

One problem I found: their documented command for un-following someone doesn't work. Follow me, and you'll get this message.

You'll receive a message every time josephgrossberg updates. To disable, send OFF JOSEPHGROSSBERG. For more commands send HELP.

But if you send that, the account in question is still in your "following" list and it appears as a normal update.

One other feature they mention (this does not work in Twitterrific): send whois josephgrossberg, on Twitter.com and you'll get my mini-bio.

Today, Twitter announced an interesting new feature: you can now track any text that appears in a Twitter update.

Using this, you can track three interesting things:

• Topics: Want to know every time someone posts about your company? You can track something like "Parakey" or "WhyGoSolo" — or even a multi-word company like track Revolution Health. One downside: tracking something like "sushi" or "Iraq" is bound to result in too much traffic to read.
• Direct messages: You can also track any time your username (or someone else's) appears: track @josephgrossberg
• Links: This one is a little more flawed, but you can track when anyone posts with a particular tinyurl in it. For example, I did track http://tinyurl.com/yv9mp9 for this site. The problem is, if they use urltea or another service, or they link to a page within your site, you won't get notified.

Like all Twitter features, this one is available on your phone or IM

The interface is very simple:

• track [whatever] and untrack [whatever] to start or stop tracking something.
• If you want to stop tracking everything, send track off.
• To see what you're currently following, send track or stats.

Alas, this last part doesn't work with Twitterrific yet; you need to be on Twitter.com to see the message.

Let's say you want to send me (Twitter: josephgrossberg) a direct message, perhaps something you don't want all your friends to see, like "@josephgrossberg I hate my boss."

You could go to Twitter.com and click on the "direct message" link, choose my username, type your message and then submit the form.

However, there's an easier way to do it. Simply use your favorite client to send a message with the format: d [username] [message], e.g. "d josephgrossberg I hate my boss".

However, there are some caveats:

• The person must be following your Twitter updates. (I assume this is an anti-spam measure.)
• You cannot send a direct message to yourself. (This is because, technically, you don't "follow" yourself.)
• Many (all?) clients, such as Twitteriffic, will not give you an error message if you try to direct message someone who doesn't follow you. It will appear to have worked. You only see that error message if you're posting from Twitter.com.