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Introduction to Twitter
What is Twitter???
Twitter is a free online service that provides a way for friends, family, and co-workers to communicate in a quick and easy way by simply answering the question: What are you doing? The service is often called micro-blogging due to its limit on answers of 140 characters; these messages are known as tweets in Twitter terms. A tweet is a message that a user posts to their profile page and is open to the public or restricted to a circle of friends. When a user posts a tweet, it is also sent out to that user’s ‘followers,’ who are members that have subscribed to the posting user’s feed. The simplicity of Twitter is what has made it so appealing to such a wide range of users, and its accessibility via mobile texting, instant messaging, email, or the web has enabled users to stay in contact with whoever they want whenever they want via updates to their status. The purpose of this page is to explain exactly what Twitter is, why/how people use it, and how it can become a part of your everyday life.
Reasons to use Twitter:
1.) Let your friends, family members, co-workers, etc. know what you are doing or what’s on your mind by simply updating your status. You can also stay up to date with what your friends/family are doing by following them.
2.) Find old friends you’ve lost contact with or make new friends.
3.) Follow celebrities, famous athletes, or even the President of the United States!
4.) Customize your profile page by selecting a background and uploading a profile picture.
5.) Easily access relevant information such as breaking world news or simple updates from your friends/family/celebrities (whomever you chose to follow).
6.) Set up your mobile device to send/receive real-time Twitter updates wherever you are.
7.) It’s free and accessible from virtually anywhere!
Twitter's History
Twitter was initially funded by Obvious Corporation and originally started as a side project in March of 2006. The first prototype was built in only 2 weeks and was quickly introduced to the public in August of 2006. Due to the rapid growth and popularity of the service, it became necessary for Twitter to become independent of Obvious Corporation. Twitter Incorporated was founded in May 2007.
The idea behind Twitter came from a man by the name of Jack Dorsey who was simply interested in the idea of being able to know what his friends were doing, in other words, their current status. The simple idea soon became the topic of discussion amongst Jack and his colleagues, and eventually the decision to develop a prototype was made. Omnigraffle and Photoshop were the programs used to design the web site and user interface, and Ruby on Rails is the web application framework used for testing/implementing any modifications to the service.
With the millions of users Twitter currently has, many different opportunities to generate revenue exist, however they have decided to stay away from these opportunities for the time being. The people at Twitter are currently focused on providing the best service and user experience for the millions of users around the world and feel that their focus will be distorted if they were to take part in these opportunities to generate revenue. Twitter’s business model is still in the research phase, claiming that they are not generating any profits.
Twitter Videos
The Basics of Twitter
In this video, we walk you through how to set up a new account on Twitter, find people to follow, customize your own profile, and some features in Twitter, including "Trending Topics".
Here is an informational music video on how to use Twitter and some of its features/uses.
Uses of Twitter
As Twitter has gained popularity, users have found an increasing number of ways to take advantage of the service in their personal life, in business settings, and as entertainment as well. Following are some typical uses of Twitter, however, its up to the user to determine how the service can be used most effectively in order to ultimately improve their lives.
Having trouble contacting old friends or family members? Twitter makes it easy for users to search for people that they no longer have contact information for and connect with them via Twitter (if the person they seek has a Twitter account). Once connected to each other via Twitter accounts, users can stay updated in real-time with long lost friends even if they are on opposite sides of the world.
Having a party and want all your friends to come but don’t feel like taking the time to call/email or send out invitations to all of them? Just update your Twitter status, even if only a select number of people are invited, you can limit your status post to just those people. Friends will instantly see your party planning tweet and all of the time usually consumed calling/texting to invite people is done in seconds. Or if you are at a party or event that you want friends to come join in on, simply update your status and it’s likely your friends will come.
Twitter can be used in the business world to communicate with employees, co-workers, investors, etc. A manager can let employees know ahead of time if they expect to be late for a meeting due to a flight delay (and vice versa), or a CEO could notify and inform investors of day to day issues the company may be facing. It eliminates the possibility of time being wasted contacting co-workers via phone, text, email, etc. by simply allowing a user to update all people relevant to a situation on their current status in one simple message.
Businesses can also use the service as a marketing tool. Unlike Facebook, Twitter does not allow companies to advertise, however Twitter does allow companies to promote certain products or events by simply posting a link or a message to their profile page. Companies can then see how users react to a certain product/advertisement/event by reading their responses and make modifications to their strategy accordingly.
Don’t like talking to your parents/relatives on the phone? Add them to your network so they won’t really ever have a reason to call you or text you, if they are concerned with what you’re doing, eating, how you’re feeling, if you’ve arrived to your destination safely, etc. they can just check their Twitter feed to find out!
People also use Twitter as a source to stay updated with current events, breaking news stories, or even see what their favorite athlete is up to. Users can search for famous celebrities, sports athletes, etc., but they must be careful when doing so due to the large number of impersonators. Sometimes tweets contain news stories or events that haven’t had time to be on TV or in the newspaper yet until the next day! If the story is too long, it is simple to paste a link into the tweet that sends users to the external page where the information was found. Users can share their opinions on current events, sports, political issues, etc. all in one simple message.
Twitter On-The-Go
One of Twitter's most attractive features is the ability to tell the world what you are up as you are on the go. There are several ways to keep the "Twitter world" up to speed even when you are away from a computer.
Twitter.com's Mobile Compatibility
From Twitter's Settings page, anyone can set up their account to update via a text message by entering their cell phone number. Tweets can be sent as a text message to Twitter. Standard texts rates apply with this method.
Twitter from a Smartphone
If you have a smartphone, there are several options available to not only tweet on the go, but have access to a number of Twitter's full site features. On the iPhone, there are several popular options that allow users to do more than just Tweet from their phones. Also, on Blackberry's an application called TwitterBerry allows users to be connected to Twitter form the palm of their hands.
iPhone Twitter Apps
iPhone has a number of applications (some free, some with a small price tag) that are Twitter compatible. Among the more popular ones are Twitterific (see screen shot below) and Twitterfon.
Twitterific allows you to view all of the Tweet's from your friends, see popular trending topics, manage multiple accounts, and simply Tweet.
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Conclusion
Twitter continues to grow at a rapid pace all around the world. It has allowed users to stay in contact with friends and family no matter where they are, businesses to take advantage of its highly effective real-time communication to increase efficiency, and individuals to provide themselves with entertainment by surfing around Twitter and taking advantage of all the different applications. The best part about Twitter, it’s FREE and extremely easy to use!
See Also
Official Twitter Site
Twitter Article
Twitter Uses
Wikipedia: Twitter