What Is Twitter?

First it was AOL, then MySpace, then Facebook, and now all you hear about is Twitter this and Twitter that. Twitter is a social media networking website, a real-time information network, a micro-blogging forum. It is a mini-news feed, a wall full of status updates, a digital community. It is a way to connect, a voice for everyday folks, and a level playing field where any John Doe can be as famous as John Mayer.

Twitter’s “About” page says that it is “a real time information network powered by people all around the world that lets you share and discover what’s happening now.”

Whether you want to share information about world news, local events, a sale at your small business, or what you had for dinner, with the click of a button, Twitter makes this information available around the world. You can also use Twitter to gather information from your friends, local businesses, favorite celebrities and legitimate news sources like CNN, NPR, BBC and Reuters.

What Twitter Means

The word twitter refers to the sounds made by birds - a light, sharp chirping sound. It also means “to tremble with excitement” or “a condition of trembling excitement,” although these are rather old-fashioned definitions (a young lady in a Jane Austen novel, for example, might find herself all atwitter in the presence of a dashing young man). Twitter, the website, embodies both of these senses. The short messages posted on Twitter evoke images of birds chattering back and forth, and Twitter’s “Trending Topics” section spreads the buzz about popular subjects - i.e. what people are excited about.

How Twitter Works

The tricky thing about Twitter, as opposed to other news sources and personal blogs, is that users are limited to 140 characters per tweet (Twitter message). This is not much space to get your message across (the first sentence of this paragraph would be too long). But like a personal web log (blog), Twitter is a place to record thoughts, feelings, information and events online. That’s why it is often called mini-blogging. You type in a message of 140 characters or less, click “Tweet,” and off it goes.

The users who “follow” you can then see your update on their Twitter home pages. In turn, you see the updates of the users you follow on your home page. If you want to visit a user’s profile page to see all of his/her tweets, you can, and you can customize your own page with pre-designed backgrounds and color schemes, or you can upload your own background and devise your own unique color scheme.

Leveling the Field

These days, it seems like everyone, from the president of the senior class to the president of the United States, is on Twitter, and for the most part, you can follow them all. It is possible to make your tweets private and access to them exclusive, but most celebrities allow anyone to follow them. Some use it as a promotional tool while others use it just like the next guy, tweeting away about the world as they observe it. In this way, every Twitter user is equal. No one gets special treatment or status, only more followers, and even “nobodies” can be somebody on Twitter.

Take Sarah Killen, for instance. A student from Michigan, she is the only person Conan O’Brien follows on Twitter, which garnered thousands of followers for her overnight. And then there’s Jon Armstrong, a web developer from Utah whose wife Heather writes one of the most popular personal blogs in the country. Jon is no celebrity, and apart from the blogosphere, neither is his wife, but he has over 13,000 followers on Twitter while she boasts over 1.6 million. In this age of technology, anyone can be a celebrity with the right connections, and Twitter seems to be one of those connections.

Everyone Can Twitter

Whether you have two followers or 200,000, Twitter is a place where you can speak your mind. With Twitter, you no longer have to be a politician to have a platform. Even if no one’s listening, you have a forum to say what you want. And if you do have a lot of followers, you have the opportunity to champion causes you feel are worthy, promote people and businesses you believe in, and send out the messages you think the world needs to hear (in 140 characters or less).