Microblogging Communities : Twitter
Welcome back!
The most popular microblogging service currently online can be found at http://www.twitter.com
Twitter is also considered to be the pioneer of microblogging, as it was one of the first to receive attention from thousands of bloggers and online businesses when it first started.
Twitter is an online social community that allows you to broadcast short messages and updates to those on your list. The people who are able to see these updates are called “Followers”. Just the same you can also choose the people you wish to follow and be added to their list as well.
Twitter is a very simple program to use, in comparison with the never-ending options available on social sites like Facebook or MySpace. It is also one of the fastest ways to get your message across by simply typing in a line or two of your current activity, launch or project and having it shown across your network of followers and friends.
If you are limited on time and are interested in joining only one microblogging network, I highly suggest choosing Twitter simply due to its popularity and global outreach.
As a member of the Twitter community, you should spend some time learning the lingo and the controls, so you can take advantage of the many features that Twitter offers.
Here is a quick overview of some of the things you should know:
With Twitter, whenever you post an update or send a message out, it’s called a “tweet”.
Twitter features an instant URL shortener, so each time you include a URL within your tweet, it will be converted into a Posting links within your tweets will automatically convert them to clickable hyperlinks, however these are no-follow meaning that you cannot get back links from posting URL’s in your tweets.
http://www.TinyURL.com/is the service they use.
Twitter’s traffic comes from SMS, Instant Message, Mobile Web, and all those wonderful API projects out there. About 60% of Twitters’ web traffic comes from outside the United States.
