What is Twitter?

Hi All DP,

I want to know what is Twitter and how it works

 

it is a microblogging platform designed to shoutout your thoughts any time.

 

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author's profile page and delivered to the author's subscribers who are known as followers. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow open access. Users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS) or external applications. While the service costs nothing to use, accessing it through SMS may incur phone service provider fees.

~From WikiPedia

 

It is a waste of time. Nobody uses it really.. well, people do.. but it is not worth spending your time on it. A lot of people sign up, try it once.. and never go back. You are better off using something like Facebook

 

Ridiculously untrue.

It's true that a lot of people sign up, use it once, then don't come back to it, but these are the people that are probably sending you "become a vampire" requests on Facebook.

There are thousands of professionals who use Twitter regularly to network with like-minded people, and it can be a fantastic way to connect. More and more businesses are signing up to Twitter due to it's potential to talk to people on a more personal level - and this works so well due to the simplicity of the website.

 

Yes I agree. Twitter has grown into a real-time short messaging service that works over multiple networks and devices, wherein you're able to send message close to you or to other people.

 

Twitter is a micro blogging site. You can do many things like status update and you can also use twitter tool known as twittley for social bookmarking.

 

twitter is great site with a lot of potential

 

You're a 17 year old girl, I wouldn't have expected anything less of a reply.

Twitter is not aimed at teenagers wanting to "poke people" and tag themselves in 500 photos - it is more aimed towards professionals for networking with like-minded people.

 

How is that talking to people on a personal level? Why not meet them in person, talk on the phone, webcam, email, etc... using Twitter is not a way to talk to people on a more personal level.. especially when you can't even write that much... and how popular, useful, or personal can a site be when it only retains about 40% of its visitors.

Just because YOU live on the site, doesn't mean that the whole professional world does as well.

 

Of course it is on a personal level. Companies use Twitter to get real-time feedback and responses. Instead of hiding behind emails and websites, huge companies such as Ford and Samsung use Twitter to talk to users (and customers) to answer questions and interact.

140 characters is more than enough to get a point across effectively. The character limit encourages people to be concise and to get their point across without spending 2 paragraphs talking about their amazing night out with their best mate Sally last night.

And for the record, I don't live on the site.

 

I bet those are the same companies that use outsourced phone support to save money.

 

I couldn't say, but it's a weak response either way.

Back to your original point - Twitter is not a waste of time, a huge number of people use it, and it can definitely be worth spending your time on if you want to help market your company and increase popularity.

 

There's a few different threads bouncing around here, so I'll try and pull some of it together with my response.

"It is a waste of time. Nobody uses it really.. well, people do.."
Either people use it, or nobody uses it. You can't have both. As a matter of fact, people use it, in ridiculous numbers, for a range of applications.

"twitter is epic fail social network taht jerks and companies use to get more customers"
If it's getting them customers, it can't be an "Epic Fail". Here's a bit of data. Over 40% of the traffic to my blog comes from Twitter referrals. Referrals from Twitter tend to have a lower bounce rate than Stumble or Digg referrals, and a higher percentage of people commenting. For my purposes, that's far from an EPIC fail.

"How is that talking to people on a personal level? Why not meet them in person, talk on the phone, webcam, email, etc."
Scenario 1: You're a director for Toyota, Microsoft, Starbucks or OmniCorp. You know prospective clients have questions, and that most of them can be answered quickly. Do you:
a) Call thousands of clients personally. You know you can't call them all, so anyone you're not calling personally feels ignored.
b) Strike up email conversations with thousands of clients. You can't email them all, some will email back. Any you don't email to will feel ignored, as will anyone who responds that you don't reply to.
c) Go round to the houses of thousands of clients, have a cup of tea and a biscuit, pet the dog... SUre. This is an entirely feasible way to interact with THOUSANDS of clients.
d) Set up a Twitter account and answer as many queries as you can. You know you can't answer them all, but you couldn't do that by phone - this way you're visibly interacting with your customer base as they can see you tweeting back. You're not only talking to people on a personal level, You're being seen to interact with people on a personal level.

I'd choose D.

Finally, "What is Twitter?"

Twitter's a microblogging site that makes it easier for you to connect with like-minded people, industry experts and clients. It's a valuable marketing tool.

Twitter's a social networking site with thousands of people telling nobody in particular about their lunch, the football team they support and the consistency of their stools.

The two definitions above are both correct. They are not mutually exclusive. If you can't use Twitter probably, it's a waste of your time. If you can, it's a brilliant tool.

 

If people are really that serious about asking questions, or trying to find information... the director (or whoever) should be putting that info on their OWN website.

It's like asking people what their website is, and they say "myspace.com/something" or twitter.com/something or facebook... no. unless you actually own those sites, that is not YOUR website... but now I am going off subject.

 

Can you predict every single query that someone may have? Think of how many websites you've pored over, read the mission statements, examined the USPs and memorised the FAQ's.

Are you honestly saying you've never had any questions that haven't been covered on a site?

Yes, people should provide as much information as possible.
No, people can't pre-empt every single question that anyone has.

If you need to answer questions, you need to answer questions. If you can't answer every individual query, you need to be seen to be answering some questions. Twitter lets you do that.

Besides, you've done a backflip. A few posts ago, you were saying Twitter wasn't personal enough. Can you get much more impersonal than the FAQ pages you seem to be suggesting?

 

Using Twitter to answer questions for a major corporation is just as stupid as MSN news using Bing search results as its "read more" links.

 

Why?

If that's a valid argument, you'll be able to back it up.

Why is using a popular method of communication to communicate "stupid"?

 

twitter is a efficient way to contact people who can not find his/her email address.

 

I agree that twitter is a popular site used by many. What I would like to know is if twitter is more for major companies and names than the small site just starting out. My site is a forum site that only has a couple of members. There is no blogging to it. So Is twitter going to be a waste of time for me?