Atwitter about Twitter

By Christie L. Smith

By now you’ve probably heard about this thing called “Twitter,” and maybe you're wondering what it is. In the third of this three-part series on social media, we’ll try to take a little bit of the mystery out of “twittering” for you. (If you missed part one on social networking, find it here. Part two about websites and blogging is here).

The short explanation is that Twitter is considered a micro-blog that asks users the question, “What are you doing?” Answers are limited to 140 characters or less. Some people take the question literally, and detail minutia about their everyday lives that no one but their mothers may find interesting. Others use the limitation of space to construct pithy replies or observations. These messages are called “tweets.” The more interesting people find your “tweets,” the more they become interested in “following” you. To “follow” someone is similar to “friending” them on Facebook. They become part of your network, and their tweets show up on your home page.

There’s even a Mr. Tweet – an application within Twitter that takes note of who you’re following and recommends other people that you may enjoy following. People can also follow you. The more followers, the larger your network, and consequently the more popular your tweets are assumed to be. Actor Ashton Kutcher recently made headlines when he challenged CNN in a race to see who could top one million followers first. He won. Five weeks later his followers doubled to two million.

Currently there are more than 14 million users of Twitter – and it’s not all teenagers. According to UK Global Mail, the average Twitterer is 31. Twitter was introduced at South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin in March 2007. In that short time, the appeal has grown so widely and the uses have broadened so much that this past legislative session  members of the Texas Legislature were tweeting from the floor. All the major TV networks send out regular tweets as do many companies who use tweets as a way to announce special deals or updates on products.

How it works

First sign up for an account (www.twitter.com). You choose a username, answer a few simple questions, and then you can start commenting. To reply directly to someone requires the use of the @ sign. Because of the limitation on space, users who wish to direct attention to a news article or a page on the web typically shorten the URL by using tinyurl.com or snipurl.com. If you have an iPhone, you can use Tweetie, which is the adaptive Twitter app for that phone. Mac users can purchase a third-party app called Twitterrific that allows them to view Twitter feeds and post tweets from their desktop rather than signing in to the website. Twhirl is a desktop app available for both PC and Mac computers which notifies you of new messages, connects to multiple Twitter accounts, allows you to search for direct replies to you, allows you to shorten long URLs, lets you update photos via Tweetpic, and more.

Tweetdeck is a Twitter client that organizes your Twitter and Facebook networks. You can tweet directly from Tweetdeck or use it to shorten URLs and upload Tweetpics.

Passing fad?

It’s possible that Twitter is a passing fad, but so far the growth continues to be the fastest among all social networks. Zappos’ employees are using it to communicate with each other, celebrities (and politicians) are using it to communicate with their fans, and in May the first “TwitterCon” (TWTRCON SF 09) took place in San Francisco to discuss how to create a Twitter business strategy. So for the time being at least, Twitter is here to stay.