Why Twitter?

If you’ve talked to me in the last month, you’ve probably  noticed that my latest addiction is Twitter. Several people have asked me what’s up with Twitter: so many so, that I decided to write this post. Some people have Twitter accounts and don’t know what to do with them. Some don’t know what Twitter is. Some know what it is and think it’s silly. This post is for all of you.

First, let me explain how Twitter works. The whole point of this web application is brevity. If you can’t keep it short and simple, you can’t use Twitter. Any message or “tweet” must be no longer than 140 characters (that includes spaces and punctuation marks).

So you sign up to get an account. Your url would be http://www.twitter.com/yourusername.  Once you have a username, and you reference yourself to other twitterers, your handle becomes @username. I’m @amandamogul.

Once you’ve signed up you can “follow” others (the equivalent of  friending on Myspace or Facebook) and basically have access to every updated tweet they post. They can follow you back, but they don’t have to. But if they do follow you, you can direct message or DM each other (send a private note that only the recipient can see).  When you log onto your homepage, you’ll see a list of all your tweets and your friends’ tweets (including non-private messages directed at specific people, which can get a bit involved) in chronological order. That’s about it.

I know a lot of you are thinking, “What makes that so special?” For me, at least, twitter has been an incredible way to get introduced to new resources AND find out the latest breaking news in business, media, marketing and PR. Read the full story