By ASINA PORNWASIN

It is the Twitter account of a well-known executive who uses the 140-character short-message medium heavily.

Nok Air CEO Patee Sarasin is @Patee122 on Twitter.

He began to tweet just four months ago, with the expectation of making friends. Now, he is eager to point out that his heavy tweeting every day is not aimed at increasing Nok Air's revenue. Rather, he enters Twitter on a personal basis and most of his conversations are about his personal interests, mottoes and general topics.

But after only four months in the real-time online community, Patee admits he is addicted to it.

"Twitter is a part of my life," he said. "I tweet every day. Tweeting is the first and the last of my daily activities. Sometimes, I tweet continuously for six hours."

One of the things he finds most attractive about Twitter is that a short message can multiply and spread widely in just a short time. Currently, he has almost 4,000 followers, among them Nok Air customers, staff, friends and the general public.

"Twitter helps me be a better typist in Thai. I usually tweet via my iPhone 3GS. I love it. Twitter can also release me from being stuck behind a desktop. It helps me to be constantly communicating with people wherever and whenever I am. I can share my experiences, my expressions and even my photos with my friends in real time," Patee said.

Even though his purpose on Twitter is to make friends, he admits he also uses it to listen to the voices of Nok Air customers. As he is recognised as Nok Air's CEO, people who want to talk about the airline, such as asking about promotions or making complaints, will talk to him directly.

"In my opinion, Twitter is not for business. It is a network of friends," he said. " I am a person who loves to talk, to discuss things with others. We can learn from each other via short conversations like those on Twitter. I don't tweet to gain more customers for Nok Air."

Patee said he believed Twitter was in its infancy. It will see extreme expansion and gather a lot more users with the coming of 3G, and when the price of smart phones comes down. Then, Twitter will become a lot more powerful.

As for Nok Air, he said that by the end of October, the airline had already recorded a profit of Bt260 million, higher than its forecast of Bt180 million. He said he could not prove that Nok Air's success was in any way due to his Twitter habit.

What's more, the company has no way of measuring its influence on business.

Nevertheless, Twitter has become a part of his life and - help the company or not - he's not about to give it up.