Written by Jessica Hayman
Jack
Dorsey, an American web developer and businessman, created Twitter in March
2006. The program was launched in July 2006 and instantly gained worldwide
popularity. By 2012, Twitter had reached well over 500 million active users who
generated over 340 million tweets a day. It is not necessary to become a member
to view twitter posts, however, to take part in this social media outlet, you
must join the other 500 million users and become a Twitter bird.
Twitter has
been dubbed the “SMS” of the Internet. The messages are called “tweets” and are
limited to just 140 words, forcing people to use shorthand and text language to
communicate in few words. Pear
Analytics, a market-research firm based in San Antonio, analyzed 2,000 tweets
over a two week period in August 2009 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and separated them
into six categories: 40% of tweets were just pointless babble, 38% of tweets
were conversational, 9% of tweets were of pass-along value, 6% of tweets were
self-promotion, 4% of tweets were spam, and 4% were news.
There are
two unique devices used on Twitter unlike any other social media: hashtags and
mentions. Hashtags are words or phrases used to group tweets by certain topics
of discussion. They begin with the # symbol and are followed by the specific
topic at hand. Mentions are used to reply to a fellow “tweep” (tweet + peep =
friend) and can be used to hold Twitter conversations. Mentions begin with the
@ symbol and are followed by the specific friend’s username.
The
Wikipedia definition of a “trending topic” is “a word, phrase, or topic that is
tagged at a greater rate than other tags.” These topics are the most talked
about subject matter on the Twitter universe. All users can access and follow
different trends which appear on the left hand side of the Twitter homepage.
Not only is
Twitter an effective way to help communicate with friends, it is also used to
share pictures. With the rising popularity of the Instagram app, more and more
people are tweeting pictures of their daily life from what they eat, to the
book they are reading, to some strange goings on in their immediate vicinity.
Photo sharing is made easy with Twitter because with a touch of a button,
pictures can be uploaded from cell phones and instantly published to your
twitter feed to share with all of your followers.
The most
important social media use that Twitter provides is an emergency communication
system. Whenever there is breaking news, whether it is a natural disaster, a
medical epidemic, or a political debacle, Twitter representatives for every
organization are there to provide information to the public in a quick, timely
manner. Also, Twitter is used to make other media outlets more interactive and
social. Television, for instances, is a great example of how Twitter can be
used to make TV shows more interactive. The viewers have a chance to interact
with the show and the actors and become important decision makers for the show.
Competition shows like American Idol and The Voice are probably the best
example of how the audience can actually affect the outcome of a show. By
engaging their audience, shows such as this increase their viewing numbers.
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