Twitter is arguably the most well-known and used social
networking engine of our generation. Despite its launch 2 years after the
reigning champion, Facebook, it had no issue gaining users and worldwide
popularity. Twitter’s influence reaches far beyond the social realm, it has
been a key player in political movements, safety notification technologies, and
donations in times of crisis.
Twitter emerged from a daylong brainstorming session inspired
by the idea of Flickr and SMS codes. When Jack Dorsey came up with the name he
was looking for something that expressed the brevity and lightheartedness of
the messages. It was launched publicly in July 2006 however didn’t hit its peak
until 2007 during the South by Southwest Interactive conference. During this
time tweets had increased from about 20,000 tweets a day to 60,000. This was
because the conference was using twitter to deliver live updates of events, which
were also projected on monitors throughout the hallways of the conference. Seeing
the effectiveness of these short messages in action generated many new users
for the site.
Its most popular use is still for social purposes but who’s
to say that’s not important? By asking the most basic of questions, “What are
you doing?” we are able to feel connected to others in our lives. Twitter fills
in where email and text messages fail. It would be irrelevant for me to text a
friend from back home that I was reading a new book, and the information is too
short and unimportant for an email. However my friend may be bored at home and
wondering what I am up to, in that case on her own time she can check in on me
and have a better sense of what’s going on in my life. David Carr, a writer for the New York
Times, comments on his experience with twitter, “I’m in narrative on more things in a
given moment than I ever thought possible, and instead of spending a half-hour
surfing in search of illumination, I get a sense of the day’s news and how
people are reacting to it in the time that it takes to wait for coffee at
Starbucks.”
The writer above is referencing the useful machine that twitter has
become. In addition to keeping friends up to date with each other’s lives
twitter serves as a news hub with accessibility to millions of people across
the world in an instant. Recently the University of Pittsburgh had turned to
twitter to keep students up to date on bomb threat evacuations and policies. Email
updates would not be able to reach students on their way to class and after a
few weeks students were unsubscribing from the EMS text messages because of the
volume they received each day. Twitter served as a perfect solution because
students could check the status of their buildings on the way to class on their
own time. Others have turned to twitter in times of crisis for example to
generate donations in times of need. When natural disasters occur and the Red
Cross is looking for funding they can tweet links of how to donate, which in
turn can be accessed by anyone on a mobile phone or computer. Twitter has been
used in countless ways for example: for job applications, campaigning for
political offices, product recalls, weather updates, and so much more. The
majority of users in fact have no idea of twitter’s capability.
In addition to well-known news services like CNN (@cnni)
bloggers such as Perez Hilton (@PerezHilton) and Boston Barstool Sports
(@Barstool_Sports) have created quite a twitter following. Users can choose to
subscribe to any users they are interested in without the pressure of having to
share any of their information or “tweets” in return. This is because the list
of people you follow and those who follow you are different and thus are
customizable to your choosing. Additionally twitter has “hashtags” build into
their online community. Anything that comes after a hashtag in a tweet will
appear in a different color and links to all other tweets including that same
hashtag. This allows users to browse and discover either by usernames or
topics.
Because of the nature of these short messages new services emerge
everyday. Accounts exist that keep track of your fuel mileage and rank your
success at a “green” lifestyle. Other services can be programmed to turn lights
off in your house or send you reminders throughout the day. The usefulness of
twitter has not yet been fully explore because to some degree it is still in
its infancy. However in the 6 short years it has been around a number of celebrities
have found ways to connect with their fans. Lady Gaga, topping the charts with
23,621,657 followers, has released information about new songs and albums
exclusively to her twitter followers. Check out the list below and see how your
own twitter account stacks up to those most popular on the revolutionary social
site.
Sources:
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