If you haven't at least heard of Twitter, you've probably been living in a cave. But don’t feel too bad if you're not yet using
Twitter. It's a rapidly growing service, but still not as mainstream as a service like Facebook.
So what is Twitter, exactly? It's a free social networking service, sometimes called a "micro-blogging" tool,
because it's like a blog, only smaller. When you use Twitter you have a maximum of 140 characters to share
your thoughts with the world. If you've ever updated your status on Facebook or added a personal message
on Windows Live Messenger, you've micro-blogged. It's a way of sharing what you're doing or thinking with
friends and with the world at large. You "follow" people on Twitter to read what they're saying. Everything
that your followers write shows up on your Twitter page, also called a “Twitter feed.” I post to Twitter as
jasondunn, and if you follow me, you'll see the things I write on your Twitter feed.
When I describe Twitter to someone who hasn't used it before, their first response is often, "Why would I want
to do that?" It's definitely not the type of thing that everyone wants to participate in. Social networking comes in
all different depths, and not everyone wants to dive into the deep end. Sharing your life with others via Twitter is definitely in-depth social networking. You can use Twitter to follow the updates of others, post your own updates,
or both—there's room for many different types of Twitter use.
So who's using Twitter? More and more people, as Twitter gains momentum. There are celebrities, such as
Ashton Kutcher,
Lance Armstrong, and
Tina Fey, among others.
President Barack Obama used Twitter leading up to the elections, gaining followers (and probably voters) along the way.
NASA uses Twitter to keep people updated about space missions, and the
BBC Breaking News publishes small bits of news as soon as they happen, before the full stories are written. Even if you don't post your own thoughts to Twitter, you can see how useful it can be to stay connected with your favorite people and organizations.