It seems everyone is hooked on Twitter the rapidly growing social networking site. It's the focus of television news, radio talk shows, and numerous print articles.
According to m/Think, Revenue Magazine's online newsletter,
"Twitter's growth has accelerated from 33% in January, to 55% in February and now 131% in March. At a growth rate of 131% a month, literally every single person alive on the planet will have a Twitter account by the end of this year."
That is an amazing growth rate.
Some of you may already use Twitter, but I am sure many are asking "What is it?" The owners say Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent messages called updates, or "tweets".
These "tweets" are no more than 140 characters long and are posted to your Twitter profile, your blog, or sent to your followers via texting or IM and are searchable on Twitter search.
All you need to use Twitter is an internet connection or a mobile phone. After you join and set up an account you can type your first update into the web box. You can search for people by name or user name, import friends from other networks, or invite friends via email.
When you receive Twitter updates from someone, you are following them. When someone receives your updates, you are being followed. Every time they post a new message, it will appear in your Twitter home page. New messages are added to your home page as people post them, so the updates are in real time.
The folks at Twitter say their service is a way to communicate with others by providing quick and frequent answers to the simple question –"what are you doing?". Well, you can probably guess some people do limit themselves to asking their followers that simple question only.
I believe Twitter can be more useful than that. For example, you can develop a group of followers and send one "tweet" to let them know of a schedule or meeting location change instead of sending multiple text messages.
You can use it to maintain a to-do list or send yourself reminders. And because you can twitter via text messaging, it can be useful when you don’t have access to your computer.
At this point, I think Twitter is for those who have too much time on their hands. Personally, I don't think people are that interested in everything I am doing. (I'm looking at your message on my computer screen.) And I'm not all that interested in what they're doing.(They are looking at my message on their computer screen.)
The term for those who use Twitter is "tweeter(s)". I wonder if a more fitting term is NitTwit.
Regardless, I will open an account out of curiosity and see if I can come up with uses other than asking someone what they are doing. I will also explore using Twitter as a business productivity/marketing tool.
I will even open an account for the BTW68 Blog. Maybe "tweeting" the blog may provide more content for you from others. If you want to open a Twitter account go here.
If you use Twitter click the comments link at the end of this post and let me know of the ways you use that service, or just give your opinion of Twitter and why you do or do not use it. I will post them on the blog.
Thanks For Reading,
Edward West
P.S If you have changed your email address please notify us at:
btw68@aol.com and BTWCLASSof68BLOG@gmail.com A lot of our emails are not being delivered.
