The fascination with twitter is growing by the day, with prdaily.com claiming there were 500 million registered users in 2012. But what exactly is Twitter and why is it taking over?
The Guardian newspaper describes Twitter as "a collection of microblogs where people post their minute-by-minute thoughts and actions". It was launched on the 15th of July 2006 and since has become an internet phenomenon.
Now among the top 10 social networking sites used around the world, Twitter has come a long way since its launch. It uses a form of media called microblogging and the status updates the users post are called 'tweets'. It was estimated that around 340 million tweets were sent per day in 2012, wow.
Despite the fact you post tweets which are basically the equivalent of a status update on Facebook, unlike Facebook, anyone anywhere in the world can read your tweets unless you specifically choose to 'protect' them and review who you allow to follow you and see them. Twitter users can often chose to follow whoever's tweets catch their interest, this creates a timeline of the tweets that the people you follow have sent.
However the main question people are asking is why is Twitter so popular today? The most obvious answer is it allows all sorts of people interact with each other, whether they are very similar or different to them. Twitter has developed so that people don't just post what their current actions are, unlike when it began, it is often used to keep up to date with worldwide news, share opinions on those subjects and interact with other users, who could be on the other side of the world.
Although there are many perks of having a twitter account, in 2009 TIME magazine claimed that Twitter "makes a terrible first impression" and gave off the general opinion that it was an unnecessary advance in the social networking circle. Necessary, it may not be. Popular? Incredibly so.
Bibliography:
Johnson, S (05/06/09) How Twitter Will Change The Way We Live article in TIME magazine.
www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1902818,00.html [accessed 11/07/13]
Bevan, K (06/03/08) article for The Guardian Why are there no spam or trolls on Twitter?
www.theguardian.co.uk/technology/2008/mar/06/socialnetworking.spam [11/07/13]
Collier, S (16/07/12) 20 illuminating facts about Twitter: 2012 edition article on PR Daily
www.prdaily.com/main/articles/20_illuminating_facts_about_twitter_2012_edition_12138.aspx# [11/07/13]
Wikipedia Twitter page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter [20/10/13]
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