What's All The Twitter About?

WORDS: KARLIN LILLINGTON

If any doubt remained as to the continuing power of Oprah, just consider her effect on the free, online social networking service Twitter. Pre-Oprah — before she joined and started ‘tweeting’ — Twitter was already a fast-growing net service that had started to move well beyond the geek-minded digerati, but still off the radar of the average person much less the average business.

Post-Oprah — as within days of her joining and the news circulating that she had done so — signups exploded, making the service one of the internet’s most-watched, and Oprah, with millions electing to register to read her daily updates, one of the most ‘followed’ (in Twitter-speak). The Oprah effect overall has meant that millions more people are realising Twitter is not just a medium for tiny chats, but a communication tool with business and brand-building capabilities in its own right.

But what exactly is it? The most basic way to describe it is a giant, online text messaging service, in which each ‘tweet’, or individual message, can only be 140 characters maximum in length. Tweets are generally sent when online, though a mobile device or phone can also work (in Ireland, Twitter doesn’t currently offer a direct to and from mobile service, but you can send and receive tweets if you have a net connection on your handset).

You can set up an account in seconds at www.twitter.com by choosing a user name; once you have an account you can send your own tweets — little short updates — or read others. If you want to receive all the tweets a person or organisation sends, you ‘follow’ them — subscribe to their tweets. Most people who use it quickly choose one of the many free Twitter group management programmes like those from Tweetdeck.com or Seesmic.com, which lets you organise who you follow into separate groups — a boon once you are following more than a couple of people or for doing job searches.