Simply put, Twitter is a Social Networking and a Microblogging tool. It allows you to send status updates - similar to Facebook, and read others status updates - called “Tweets”. Tweets can be up to 140 characters and are more “real time” than what you find on Facebook or other Social Networking sites.
According to Wikipedia, “In November 2008, Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester Research estimated that Twitter had 4-5 million users.[2] A February 2009 Compete.com blog entry ranks Twitter as the third largest social network (behind Facebook and MySpace), and puts the number of users at roughly 6 million and the number of monthly visitors at 55 million.[3]“
The site Twitter is not overly impressive but they have written the software in a way that others can develop applications to use with Twitter. This is where it gets interesting as there are hundreds, and possibly thousands of application you can use for Twitter - including Tweetdeck, Twitterberry (for Blackberry), Tweetie (for iphones), Twitterific, and Tweetbeep.
A few of my favorites include -
- Tweetdeck (use on your desk top to better organize Twitter)
- Twellowhood (find out who is using Twitter in your area)
It’s also helpful to be able to search Twitter at www.search.twitter.com.