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21 July 2010 - Twitter Explained
 Tweets are considered microblogs because they are limited to 140 characters. The intent is that a tweet is just a quick blurb about what you are doing right now, or maybe a quick link to something of interest that you have found on the web. It is fast, easy and terribly efficient. Perhaps that is why it has become so hugely popular worldwide.
According to Wikipedia, Twitter ranks in the top fifty websites worldwide and is the third most used social network. This may well be due to its ease of use, especially in comparison to other social networking sites. All one needs to do to start using Twitter is open an account and start banging out tweets. In fact, it may be this ease of use that also drives another unique fact about Twitter. According to Wikipedia, only eleven percent of Twitter’s users are under the age of eighteen.
In addition to the Twitter interface, there are countless third-party tools for tweeting and working with tweets on the Twitter network. These include such things as URL shortners, online photo storage, Smartphone applications and even full-blown application suites that handle all aspects of managing multiple Twitter accounts. These are all made possible because of Twitter’s decision to aggressively promote their application programming interface, or API.
Twitter was originally developed with Ruby on Rails, if you are interested in such geeky things.
Of those who use Twitter regularly, most seem to do so because of the ease of communication it brings to their lives. For many, sending a quick tweet saves them countless Emails, phone calls and text messages.
Twitter’s use as a mass communication tool is probably just now starting to come into its own. It has found a niche in politics, where campaigns use it to quickly get their message out to the party faithful. Many large companies, especially media organizations, are using it to get their messages straight out to consumers. And many organizations now employ people to follow Twitter and tweet on behalf of the company.
Of course, as with any technology, it did not take spammers long to get on board. So it is not surprising that one of the chief criticisms from Twitter’s detractors is the volume of spam and useless, distracting chatter that takes away from the valuable content. However, as this has become an increasing issue, tools have begun to spring up to help users combat spam and focus their attention on the content that matters to them.
Twitter is definitely not a passing fad. It is here to stay, and it has the potential to be a powerful marketing and communication force for some time to come.
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