Monday, April 19, 2010

Explaining Twitter And The Tweets

Many of my friends often wonder the use and importance of Twitter. They say - "What is this Twitter all about?"That is the reply I get most often when I talk about Twitter to friends and family.  And when I explain them the way how Twitter operates, they ask, "Why would anyone use Twitter for blogging and other purpose when you dont have a separate inbox etc and everything here is public?"
Twitter is a Mini Blog
Twitter is a mini update usually containing 140 characters. It is a popular features of social networks where you can update your status.
It is a kind of mini blogging, for people who want to blog but don't want to blog on platforms like blogger etc. A personal blog can keep people informed on what is going on in your life and in and around you, but not everyone has the time to spend an hour crafting a beautiful post about them or what they think. Sometimes, you just want to say "I am not feeling well today" or "I want to see Sachin Tendulkar winning for Mumbai Indians In IPL3."
So what is Twitter? It's a great place for keeping people informed on what you are up to without the need to spend a lot of time creating an entire post on any topic you want to speak your mind on.
Twitter is Social Messaging: - While Twitter was started as a mini-blogging service, it is grown into much more than simply a tool to type in quick personal status updates. So when asked "What is Twitter?", I often describe it as a "cross product of blogging and instant messaging" to describe it roughly in plain and simple language.
At Twitter - social messaging you can follow people and have followers, and even you can have Twitter on your cell phone and interact with people whenever you like. Twitter has become the perfect social messaging tool. Whether you are out on the town and want to connect with a group of people , or keeping people informed of developments at the event or task you are out for, Twitter is a great tool for quickly communicating a message to a group of people.
Twitter is also emerging as a media to comment on world activities i.e. you can speak your mind on persons, politics, event etc.
Twitter is News Reporting : - Turn on CNN, BBC or any other news-reporting service and you'll be able to see whats going on in the world around and you can also see your favourite media person's comments and opinion on that particular event.
With utilities like Twitterfeed, it is easy to get an RSS feed converted into Twitter updates. This makes it easy to use Twitter as a form of social media marketing. This is also a strong SEO Tool nowadays. There are tools which can post any webcontent on Twitter in the form of short hybrid URLs. A example of this URL is - http://bit.ly/abEqWJ. You cannont predict from this URL what is inside this URL.
After discussing so many things we are now in a situation to say exactly what Twitter is. It is many different things to many different people. It can be used by a family or group or friends to keep in touch, or a company to coordinate business, or the media to keep people informed or a writer to build up a fan base. Twitter is micro/mini-blogging. It is social messaging medium, a business tool, a news reporting service and a marketing utility in SEO.
I hope my friends will read this post to whom Twitter was not clear as to what it is actually. So start twittering about your own status to your friends and group you are associated with and you want them to be in touch with you.

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