Click here to see what it's all about: Twitter

What is Twitter?

• Basic Overview: Free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send "updates” or "tweets” to the Twitter website, via SMS (e.g. on a cell phone), instant messaging, or a third-party application.
• Twitter's Claim: “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?”

How to Join:

• The best thing about Twitter is that it's FREE! All you need to do is create your own username and submit a valid e-mail address. Twitter sends you an e-mail right away with a link to activate your account and to welcome you to the program.

Using Twitter

• Updates or "Tweets"
• The whole basis of Twitter is to be able to send a single message to a mass amount of people. In the Twitter world, these updates are sometimes referred to as "tweets." Updates/tweets can be up to 140 characters long. When I would send and update, I would either say exactly what I was doing or say how I was feeling. However, I noticed a lot of people would just post quotes or song lyrics as their updates which I thought was interesting.
• The updates on Twitter I found to be pretty similar to the status component on Facebook.

• Your Profile:
• Once you sign up for Twitter, the first thing you will want to do is create a profile for yourself. To do so, click 'Settings' in the upper lefthand part of your Twitter screen.
• Before Twitter, the only social-networking site I used or was familiar with was Facebook. Compared to Facebook, Twitter is much more simple. You can upload a picture of yourself if you like, you can give your geographical location and time zone, choose your primary language and you can include a 160 character bio about yourself. Although you create a username that you use to sign in with and that is part of your Twitter url, you can choose to be identified by your real name if you think that would make you more recognizable than your username. You can also customize your Twitter background or leave the background as the default background consisting of a light blue color and white clouds.
• My Profile:
• I chose my AIM screenname as my Twitter username, which is erinc86. Considering most all my friends know this to be my screenname and it creates an obvious assocation to myself for those that don't know my screenname, I chose not to have my whole name listed. I uploaded a picture of myself and included this short bio:I am an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin- Madison studying communication, spanish, and teaching English to speakers of other languages. I also included Madison, WI as my geographical location because that way I could bridge the gap from the online forum to my reality by connecting with people in my area.

• Followers and Following
• Followers are people that request to get your updates. Most of the people that requested my updates were people that live in Madison, WI. I figured they chose to follow me because I have my profile open for anyone to see and they saw that I, too was located in Madison, WI as well. The only non-Madison person that requested to follow me was the Obama campaign that I had signed up to follow. I did not know any of the people that requested to follow me, and had the option to block them if I really wanted to.
• Following refers to the people that you request to receive updates. Since no one I knew used Twitter, I tried to solicit a bunch of my friends to join by sending them invitations through a link on the Twitter website. Unfortunately, none of them took interest to the idea. I felt creepy just adding random people I didn't know, so I searched around for awhile and found that political campaigns had Twitter. I have a strong interest in politics and this upcoming elections so I chose to follow the Clinton, Obama, and McCain campaigns through Twitter. Most of their updates included links to news stories about primaries in different states, or certain political events. It was a fun way for me to stay informed on the political front and make good use out of Twitter since I had no one of important to send or receive updates.

• Devices
• The thing that's great about Twitter is that you don't necessarily have to be on the website to send out updates. You can send them through certain instant messaging systems, through third-party applications and via text message on your cell phone.
• The only instant messaging system I use is AIM. Unfortunately, that was not a messaging system through which you could update your Twitter. However, I did find an application on Facebook in which you could update your Twitter through Facebook. Another great thing about the Twitter application on Facebook was that it was a great resource for questions and discussion of Twitter.

• The device I used a lot with Twitter was my cell phone. I activated my cell phone so that I could receive updates from the campaigns I was following directly to it. However, I did not have unlimited text messages so I had to stop it for awhile because they update so frequently, sometimes multiple times a day. I was able to send updates through my phone as well using the number 40404.

Reflection of My Twitter Experience

Overall, I found Twitter pretty easy to use. Although it was interesting to follow the campaigns on it, I found myself getting bored with it. Had I actually had friends or family to send messages to or to receive messages from, I may have found it more useful or more exciting. The other problem I had with Twitter was that in comparison to Facebook as a social-networking site, it had very little to offer in terms of establishing your identity. Its emphasis is really on the updates. So if you were looking to use the site to meet new friends and what not, it does not really cater to those needs.

In researching Twitter, I found that it began as a research and development project inside San Francisco start-up company Obvious, LLC in March 2006. It was later launched to the public in October that same year. Given this fact and other personal stories I read from Twitter users, it seems to appeal to an older, middle-aged crowd. This might be due to its simplistic model since to some, social-networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace can be overwhelming with the amount of information and applications they have. I think especially for people in the business world, it's nice to send a quick message to co-workers or associates saying "I'm out to lunch, I'll be back by 2" or something along those lines instead of writing big long e-mails in which you have to type in every recipients e-mail address.

I think Twitter is a great way to communicate with many people simultaneously. It's simple and easy to use and if you want to be able to quickly send out a mass message, this is for you. However, since I do not have the need to send quick mass messages to people, I found no real use for it.

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