Twitter – What is it?
If you are like me, you’ve heard of Twitter, haven’t tried it, and now you think, “Am I missing something?”
So what exactly is Twitter? The service is so simple that I think their own website sums it up best ‘Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?’.
In essence, once signed up you can follow other users so that you get a constant feed of information relating to what other people are doing or what is on their mind. You are able to follow anyone you wish and likewise others are also free to follow your musings – as such you can easily get in contact with, and follow, a large number of people that may have viewpoints or lives that interest you.
The remarkable thing about Twitter is the sheer popularity that it has amassed in its three year lifespan, it has almost 2 million daily visits. Part of the popularity of the service may well be the number of prominent users, such as Barack Obama, and Britney Spears.
Messages of up to 140 characters in length can be posted via your mobile phone, an instant messaging account of directly on the Twitter website. Once broadcast those that are following you will see your update on their own twitter homepage.
Another possible explanation to the popularity can probably be found by looking at the history the service appears to be making. On December 2008 it was announced that Israel would be the first government to hold a worldwide press conference on Twitter to take questions from the public on the war against Hamas. During the November 2008 Mumbai siege the use of Twitter by victims, bystanders and the public to gather news and coordinate responses lead to CNN calling it ‘the day that social media appeared to come of age’. Twitter usage increased 43% on US Election Day.
So far, I have avoided “text messaging on cell phones”, and Twitter. I do e-mail, carry a cellphone, and I have a laptop. But...... "Am I Missing Something??"
