In this Internet age, we are always looking for new ways to connect with each another, promote ourselves, and let's face it, stalk one another. (Don't pretend you have never Googled your date's name.) Twitter may not be the newest of these social media Web sites, but it has become one of the more popular. In the last few months, Twitter membership has climbed exponentially, and it seems like the corporate media can't finish a broadcast or an article without dropping a Twitter reference.If you are wondering what on earth Twitter is, then you are not unlike a lot of people. Twitter rose to prominence so quickly that many of us were left behind, updating our Facebook statuses. When comedian Stephen Colbert famously said "twatting" instead of "tweeting," the faux pas made headlines. When a Congressman "tweeted" while on television giving a speech, the public was outraged. (Clearly, he was not the man behind the username.) Many college students found this publicity perplexing. Was it not supposed to be them who clung to social media? The news told us we were, but where were these Twitter users? Were our friends sneaking off to the restroom to secretly update their Twitters?
As to where the media got the idea that students were using Twitter, I do not know, but I did decide it was time to find out what the fuss was about, if only so as not to have to fake my way through another Twitter conversation with an adult who assumed I, as a 20-something student, understood the newest technology. What I found was my new addiction. Twitter is a micro-blogging Web site on which users can share "tweets," or messages of no more than 140 characters. These tweets then appear on the profile of the user and on the Tweetfeeds of your followers. A Tweetfeed is similar to the Facebook Newsfeed, only instead of containing the recent updates of your friends, it contains the recent Tweets of those you Follow. To become a follower, all a user has to do is click "Follow" on the profile of a user. Whereas in the past, we could find vindication in the number and quality of our Facebook friends, we can now compete for the number of followers we can acquire. It seems that we have found our new method of worship. Jesus had his followers and now Yoko Ono does too.
Users can also connect to one another and respond to each other's Tweets. When one Twitterer refers to another Twitterer in a Tweet, the former puts @ plus the later's username (@username) in the Tweet. The @ notifies the Twitter software that another user has been mentioned and adds the Tweet to the mentioned user's @Replies folder. Therefore, users can send replies to other users' Tweets or merely draw another user's attention to a Tweet. Another common practice that uses this @ technology is the "Retweet" (RT). To Retweet is to quote someone else's Tweet. This is done by writing RT @user, followed by the quote. The @ symbol is also used when writing an article such as this one before writing a user's username. So, later, when I mention Tim Siedell, I will follow his name with @badbanana. Direct private messaging is possible as well if both users are following one another, but this is considered poor etiquette. This is because every time a user puts your username in a Tweet, his or her followers are likely to look at your profile and possibly follow you as well. And the more followers, the better in this Twitterverse.
Much of the vocabulary and tricks of Twitter evolved through the direction of its users according to chief executive and co-founder of Twitter Evan Williams (@Ev). Not only was the term Tweet invented by users, but the entire @user system began with the Twitterers. The company only adjusted the software to make those Tweets go into a special folder after the @user practice had spread.
Like everything on the Internet, Twitter has its fans and its prosecutors. Some psychologists believe that Twitter is unhealthy. Clinical psychologist Oliver James said, "Twittering stems from a lack of identity. It's a constant update of who you are, what you are, where you are. Nobody would Twitter if they had a strong sense of identity."
Still others argue that Twitter is the ultimate vehicle of narcissism. Because the content of the tweets is entirely subject to the user, anything goes (as long as it is under 140 characters!). Some Twitterers use it as a networking tool, while other use it promotionally. Still others, such as John Cleese (@JohnCleese) and Tim Siedell (@badbanana), use Twitter as a mechanism through which to give followers insight into their absolutely insane minds. (@badbanana If you want people to buy your toxic assets, start calling them delicious, all-natural assets. Also, free toy inside.) However, there are also those users who use Twitter to update the Twitterverse on the mundane details of their day.
In "Twitter Nation: Nobody cares what you're doing," journalist Helen A.S. Popkin wrote, "Why do we think we're so important that we believe other people want to know about what we're having for lunch, how bored we are at work or the state of inebriation we happen to be at this very moment in time?"
An offender of the mundane Tweet is Miley Cyrus (@MileyCyrus). As she is new to Twitter, and only 16, she does not provide the most thrilling Follow. She recently wrote, and I quote, "tweet tweet tweet i just twittered! yayyy =] i love tweeting!"
However, on the other hand, Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) used his Twitter to give followers a look at a video of him getting his chest waxed. He and wife Demi Moore use their accounts to give insight into their marriage (and most likely to gain publicity). Kutcher wrote, "@mrskutcher We are on the martini be home soon. Dress up for me I'm taking you on the town tonight." (Oh, the thrill of a celebrity Follow.)
In "Twitter? It's What You Make It," David Pogue (@Pogue) wrote, "Twitter, in other words, is precisely what you want it to be. It can be a business tool, a teenage time-killer, a research assistant, a news source - whatever. There are no rules, or at least none that apply equally well to everyone."
This is why many advocates of Twitter say that critics have no argument. Twitter does not have to be used to broadcast the inane, the mundane, or the offensive. Earlier this year, when a plane crashed into the Hudson River, it was a Twitterer that first broke the news that everything was okay. When @alextramiel ran out of gas, @blackjay came to his rescue after reading his Tweet. While Pogue was serving on a grant proposal committee, a fellow judge Tweeted to his followers to ascertain whether a certain project had been tried before. "In 15 seconds, his followers replied with Web links to the information he needed. No e-mail message, phone call or Web site could have achieved the same effect. (It's only a matter of time before some "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire contestant uses Twitter as one of his lifelines.)."
Whether good or bad, it seems that Twitter is here to stay. It may not have caught on in small, conservative college communities where most students do not read or participate in blogging, but it has caught on in the hipster crowd and the corporate media as well as celebrities have enjoyed the publicity Twitter can give to their Web sites, blogs, and broadcasts. It's only a matter of time before Twitter catches on with those outside the realm of the social media crazed as well.
Now that Twitter has begun to gain popularity, all the Twitter executives have to figure out is how to make money off the site.
(And, by the way, this entire article was researched via Tweets.)
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