A couple weeks ago I mentioned the release of Identi.ca, a social networking/microblogging site built on an open platform and allowing federation. Today, a beta release of Twhirl, one of the more popular clients used on the Twitter microblogging service as well as a couple others, adds support for Identi.ca and includes "push" support. Many of us who have come to like Indenti.ca are very happy.

That means Twhirl doesn't have to pole (read: overwhelm) the Identi.ca servers to see if you have any new items to read. Instead the servers just let you client know there's new content and pass it along. It works using the jabber/instant messaging interface (identi.ca sends it's push messages to your jabber account, and you tell Twhirl how to log into your IM account).

This is pretty darned smart (and takes a couple steps to set up). It's something that Twitter could probably use on their service to potentially reduce load (although I cannot say for sure that a push service would actually reduce the issues related to overloading of their servers).

Read more about it at CNET or grab the latest beta of Twhirl with Identi.ca support from this link.