What is Twitter?

People often ask: What is Twitter? What does Twitter mean? How does it work?

Twitter is a Social Networking website that allows members (tweeters) to post their status (tweets) for others to see, and see other tweeters' tweets.

As a tweeter, you may follow people that you are interested in. In turn, other people may follow you. Tweeters following tweeters.

Tweeting (also called twitting) is very similar to blogging, but at a micro scale, (microblogging) because the maximum number of characters you can use for each tweet or post is 140. That's about 2 lines of text, you can't fit a whole lot in that space.

What makes Twitter different from other Internet Social Networks is its search capability. You can search for tweets taking place "right now" about any particular subject. It's like having a window to what's going on at any given time regarding any given subject, anywhere.

How to twitter After you set up an account in twitter, you can select people you’d like to follow. You can chose to follow famous people, companies or groups that tweet, or just your buddies.

Next, start posting or tweeting about things you want others to know. You can tweeter about your interests, what you are up to, what's on your mind. You may want to post links to web sites you like, including your own website. You may also retweet messages you read and like.

What is Retweet? Retweet or re-tweet can be seen as the forwarding function of Twitter. Sometimes you run across a post (news, quote, or a link) that you want your followers to see. You just highlight the tweet, copy it and paste it on your tweet space. Label it as a retweet by inserting the letters RT before the message.

How to join Twitter All you have to do is go to twitter.com and click on the button labeled “Sign up now”. You’ll be taken to a page that asks you to enter your Full name, your Username and a Password, plus your email address. The selection of your twitter username and password is like any other online account for which you have created a username and a password.

---

I hope the "What is Twitter" question is now answered so you can chose whether you want to become a tweeter. If you do, start by following tweeters you want to know more about. When your are ready, start to tweet and retweet; your followers will come.