Then I tried FileTwt’ing a pdf just for shits and giggles, but that didn’t work either. Then I tried FileTwt’ing an mp3 of Jeff Buckley‘s “Last Goodbye”, because the title befits my nascent-yet-already-frayed relationship with FileTwt — or at the very least, I figured its undulant guitar chords would chillax me a bit.

That one went through lickety-split, so now I’m totally grooving to some early-a.m. Buckley and feeling much better. So now I will explain to you best I can how FileTwt works.

You sign up in five seconds by making up a FileTwt username and password and also giving them your Twitter username and password, plus an email address. (And actually, you don’t even need to sign up if you’re just going to send public FileTwts; simply drop your Twitter info.) Then you attach your file and, if you want, a 114 character-max message — ‘cept that FileTwt doesn’t count down your character limit a la Twitter, so if you’re totes verbose like me, there’s a lot of self-editing going into that step.

(FWIW, everything about FileTwt — which is “not affiliated with twitter.com in any way” — is beta-stagy right now. At one point, I found myself on a sitepage that was bordered by a bunch of boxes labeled “Advertisement goes here.” Even the feedback button leads to a pop-up full of wonkiness.)

Based on my one successful FileTwt, here’s what’s bumming me out. Basically, all FileTwt does is turn your file into a url and sticks it at the end of your Tweet. (I can do that myself, thanks.) When someone clicks on that link, he or she is taken to another page with a clickable download button. In the case of my Buckley test-drive, that results in Quicktime opening yet another Internet window to play the file. In other words, the recipients of my FileTwts can’t save the files on their end, only open them. If you were hoping (as I was) that we were somehow gonna get a bit of Napster back with FileTwt, well, you’re Twit outta luck.

(p.s. Despite my beefs with the app, I’m tempted to start up what I’ve dubbed in my noggin “SneakTweet Music,” a daily FileTwt I’d send out recommending this-or-that new track I’m hooked on. I actually made numerous attempts pre-Mandy Moore to do just that with an mp3 of One For The Team‘s “Best Supporting Actor” – which, if you’ve never heard, you really ought to do yourself the favor. If SneakTweet sounds like something you’d dig, you should let me know by following me – or us on Twitter.