What The Heck Is Twitter, Anyway?

Twitter was developed with the vision of producing "stream-of-consciousness content". A "Twitter" is 140 characters or less, and the key feature of Twitter is the ability to subscribe to the Twitter-streams of people you know (or would like to know).

While it may seem difficult at first glance to understand why anyone would want access to a stream-of-consciousness feed from the brain of someone else, even someone they know and love dearly, there have been some interesting applications identified.

Reported on the Twitter blog recently was the use of Twitter to track the movements of tornados in real time.

Living in the Bay Area, we have noticed that we reach for our phones to Twitter the second we feel an earthquake. It looks like Anne Jackson has discovered that Twitter can play a helpful role during Tornados too.

"... even though they were hiding in closets and basements, they could know exactly where the tornado was because of Twitter."

Twitter integrates with mobile phones, so if you are using it purely by visiting the website, you may be missing some of the reasons why the avid users are so, well, avid.

Like all in-groups, avid users of Twitter are developing their own jargon. Here is a partial list from a non-official source:

1. Tweet- A twitter message

2. Twoosh- a tweet that is exactly 140 characters

3. Twude- A guy on twitter. Twitter Dude.

4. Twerd- A word used mainly on twitter. Anything in this list.

5. Twat- Same in real world as on twitter.

6. Twarf- A single word tweet

7. Twerk- A jerk or asshole on twitter.

8. Tweetup- Meeting up offline with people from twitter.

9. Twup- Picking up someone via twitter. Also considered a Twup if done at a Tweetup.

10. Twugs- Various meaning depending on tweet. Either a thug on twitter, or reference to drug use on twitter.

Not many statistics have been published on Twitter usage yet, with its existence as a separate entity barely a year long, but this chart appeared on the Twitter blog in February.

Twitter's traffic comes from SMS, Instant Message, Mobile Web, and API projects, as well as traditional (or a Twitteres refer to it, "old-fashioned") web traffic. 60% of Twitter's web traffic comes from outside the United States and this chart shows the top ten non-US sources.

This chart is just web traffic. It doesn't include any of the other popular ways that people use Twitter. The blog notes - Australia ranks 6th if we look at SMS usage. We'd get altogether different numbers if we looked at instant messaging, m.twitter.com, and API devices such as Twitterrific.

You might think that such tiny bursts of information would be mostly noise, or occasionally perhaps news, but certainly not creative or interesting writing. Think again.

Twitter has already spawned two literary forms which celebrate the creative challenge of the 140 character limitation - the Twitter haiku, and the Twittory.

A Twitter Haiku

Seven score keystrokes

Life summarized for my friends

Instant messaging.

The Twittory

A Twittory is a piece of collaborative fiction, composed of 140 individual Twitters, each of 140 characters or less.

For example, a Twittory for middle-school students begins:

1. In the depths of New York City, on top of the Empire State Building, a creature rested. That creature was me.

2. As I feel my life slipping away from me, I can barely remember a time when I was happy. I remember my friends and family. Like a dream.

3. I feel like I'm totaly lost. It's like I'm in a scary movie. I can't even see because it's so foggy. What am I going to do? Where can I go?

4. Maybe I'll slowly creep away tonight, while the city sleeps, and make my way back to the depths of the ocean. A place I call home.

5. As I start down, I can still see movement in the city. So I creep lightly through dark alleys so nobody can see me. Suddenly,

6. I see a light turn on in a window. My eyes lock with a young woman holding a baby. She screams and I start to run.

You can follow the progress of this Twittory at twitter.com/manyvoices.

Not all users are thrilled with the Twitter experience, however.

The Wall Street Journal wrote, "These social-networking services elicit mixed feelings in the technology-savvy people who have been their early adopters. Fans say they are a good way to keep in touch with busy friends. But some users are starting to feel 'too' connected, as they grapple with check-in messages at odd hours, higher cellphone bills and the need to tell acquaintances to stop announcing what they're having for dinner."

Jeff Jarvis, columnist for the Guardian, reckons this is just a teething problem.

When I first used the microblogging platform Twitter - which enables users to publish 140-character-long messages via the web and mobile phones - I thought it was silly. Or rather, the uses to which it was being put were silly: people announcing that they'd just woken up or what they'd had for breakfast. I couldn't have cared less. But then I should confess that when I first used blogs and podcasts, I didn't fully comprehend their impact either. So, when my son and webmaster told me I should take another stab at Twitter, I did. And I now see it is an important evolutionary step in the rise of blogging.

Jarvis sees Twitter as the platform on which breaking news can be rapidly dispersed, and which can allow a myriad of small pieces of information to be assembled quickly into a "real" news article. He cites political journalist Ana Marie Cox, who is using Twitter to make her signature brand of jibs and snipes in real time as she attends political functions.

Spin room has already started. Can hear the gentle murmur of BS already sloshing about in the hall ... McCain donor just announced he was footing the bar bill for the night. You can start calling him ‘ambassador' now ... Ron Paul compresses coal into diamonds in his mouth ... Mitt has so many things ‘in my bloodstream' (cars, Michigan, business) you could make a v powerful vaccine out of him ...

I guess there are still some teething times to go!

This is a fascinating blog post about the ability of Twitter to spread news faster than any other medium - news which is too small to be noticed by the mainstream media, but can be make-or-break for a given company or individual.

I can see the potential this has to become yet another avenue for bullying and intimidation in the hands of bored pubescents, but I can also see the blog author's point that certain types of action, particularly words spoken in haste or in malice, previously cloaked in anonymity, can now be in the full glare of public view within minutes of coming out of someone's mouth.

What if anything you ever said behind someone's back was broadcast instantly?

How would that change the way we behave?

Would it make us all politer? Or more devious?