If Facebook was the television that you grew up and loved, Twitter is the satellite dish.

When used effectively, Twitter is less about forming or maintaining personal relationships and more about the sharing of comments that are free from the pettiness of social media applications such as Facebook. So instead of dressing up what you have to say to impress your circle of friends, now you are laying bare your ideas.

Once you get into Twitter it starts to feel like a swingers club for exchanging information. Instead of telling people about yourself, you are jumping right into what you want to say with random people. You start by finding subjects that you want to talk about. Then you locate a few people to share your interests, which will offer new perspectives and experiences about the topic. By linking with others you are able to gain more insight into topic of interest.

Twitter is often seen as a simple internet fad, the new thing to waste time on.  There is truth in this. Here is a cartoon that points out the many faults of a typical twitter user.

“What’s Twitter?”
“da da da, latest social networking micro blogy thingy”
“I’m not interested”
“Damnit Derek, You are a young, hip, tech savy 20 something, and I will not let you turn into my father, come on.”
“Where are you taking me”
“Into the Twittershpere…”

It is true that the majority of Twitter users do not have much to say, But with a bit of searching you can find interesting and informed opinions on a vast array of subjects, especially on the internet and technology.

Often Twitter is called a mini blog which is misleading it is not a micro blog at all. Twitter is the blog interstate. Once you have started build your twitter network your roads will include information with links to blogs, videos, and posts funneled to your page. These messages or tweets are targeted information coming from your Twitter friends. If you like golf you don’t stop have to stop at friending Tiger Woods. You can also find other golf friends who enjoy sharing golf information with you. This information includes articles on great places to golf, videos on techniques, and egocentric messages on their recent scores.

From this giant pool of twitter people there are people who are interested in a variety of subjects but are not looking to get to know you personally. Unlike email you don’t have to worry about your message inbox filling up. And if someone is annoying with a lot of dumb messages you simply stop following them.

You can listen to anyone: celebrities,  politicians, captains of industry. It is less about following a huge group of people than it is about selecting and shaping the noise that is coming from your orchestra of Tweets. It can be a great resource as long as you choose those who have a pertinent point of view.

Like it or not, this simple web application is influencing how the world web is spun and read. Here are three examples.

The first example demonstrates that one of the best uses of this tool is for marketing. “Alecia Dantico is a professional tweeter for Garrett Popcorn. A growing number of businesses are embracing social media by hiring full-time employees, like Dantico, to man Twitter, Facebook and similar sites.” “Social media is all about being social,” says Nora Ganim Barnes, a marketing professor and director for the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. “It’s not called selling media. The biggest mistake companies make is using social media to hawk products. It’s a turnoff.” AP – MSNBC.  When used for marketing it is important how one talk to their followers.
(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32661618/ns/business-careers)

Secondly, Twitter helped narrate the news story in Denver of a 737 plane sliding off the runway and injuring 38 people on Dec 20 2008. “Passenger Mike Wilson tweeted his miraculous escape.” -The Business Insider (http://www.businessinsider.com/2008/12/twitter-holy-fucking-shit-i-was-just-in-denver-plane-crash)
Since Mark chose to use Twitter on his phone instead of calling someone. The information was received much differently because of the choice he made. Instead of having one friend on the other line there were multiple Twitter followers. The conversation was computerized text so that meant it could be easily quoted and pushed through the internet.

Finally, “Twitter is also influencing other big Internet players like Facebook. Facebook’s latest face-lift was clearly a response to Twitter’s overwhelming influence, even though Facebook has a substantially larger user base.” -Feross.org.
(http://www.feross.org/new-twitter-layout/)

Since this entry was originally posted Twitter has changed their prompt to “What’s happening”  from “What are you doing”.

“The change acknowledges that Twitter has grown far beyond the more personal status updates it was originally envisioned to convey, and has morphed into a sort of always-on, source-agnostic information network that is wholly unique. Twitter says they don’t expect the change to at all influence how people actually use Twitter, but might “make it easier to explain to your dad.”  -Mashable http://mashable.com/2009/11/19/twitter-whats-happening/

Once people stop shouting and begin tuning their voices, others will really begin to start harmonizing, eventually resulting in communities tightly bound in productive dialogue.