It has taken awhile for me to ‘get’ Twitter. I have had an account for almost a year now but I did not dive in until a couple months ago.
If you have no idea what twitter is you can take a look at the website (www.twitter.com), but I will explain how it is used by people I know every day.
Phone calls, Instant Messaging, Text Messages are all ways for you to initiate contact with friends, Twitter is a bit different, it’s more passive then that. Imagine the 20 something crowd, active life style, at home one evening not really in the mood to call around and see what everyone is doing, but would be willing to go out and have some fun. Twitter is designed to alert the world or you friends on what you are doing right now, or are planning to do in the immediate future. One of your friends, Jennifer might update their Twitter status aka Tweet “Heading out to see @Jill and going out for drinks at #troppo” If you are friends with Jennifer, its referred to as ‘following’ Jennifer in the Twitter world your Twitter page would be updated with her message. The @Jill is Jill’s handle on Twitter, you can think of it as an IM screen name. People that follow Jill would then be notified. So when Jennifer and Jill show up at Troppo it’s possible that they might be joined by a couple more friends. Doing a #troppo can identify a place, you can also keep an eye on what is happening at given locations.
That is probably a lot to take in, but more examples might help.
The beauty of Twitter is that it is available over the web, as a program on your computer, over Text message, or programs for you cell phone. This makes it easy to update your status and read your Twitter page to see what your friends are up to. Twitter makes it easy for you to stay in touch with friends that are outside your closest circle as well. I have a friend that moved to Chicago and I rarely get to see him, but he updated his Twitter status and mentioned he was at El Azteco (he was back for home coming). That let me know he was in town, and then I text messaged him to arrange hanging out for a little bit during the homecoming tailgate. A couple months ago some friends and I were at Lollapalooza, a friend from long ago who lives in Minnesota now updated his status that Bloc Party was about to take the stage; wait I was about to see Bloc Party, so he must be around here, I then sent him a direct message through Twitter. You can even send GPS coordinates from your device if you want to!
If you are familiar with the Facebook status update, Twitter is very much like that, I actually have my Twitter configured so that it automatically updates my Facebook page status as well.
Want to get started with Twitter? Feel free to follow me: http://www.twitter.com/ryandoom
Every month a group of Mid-Michigan Twitter users gather at a bar or restaurant to catch up in person, you can follow the #midmichtweetup here: https://twitter.com/MidMichTweetUp
Or find the group on Facebook “Mid-Michigan Tweet-up”