What
Twitter is an online social networking service and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based messages of up to 140 characters, known as “tweets”.
It was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July. The service rapidly gained worldwide popularity, with over 500 million active users as of 2012, generating over 340 million tweets daily and handling over 1.6 billion search queries per day.
Since its launch, Twitter has become one of the top 10 most visited websites on the Internet, and has been described as “the SMS of the Internet.
Unregistered users can read tweets, while registered users can post tweets through the website interface, SMS, or a range of apps for mobile devices.
Why
The power of Twitter cannot be underestimated. Twitter has become an extremely popular way to share content, communicate, and broadcast information. Results from Twitter are included in many major search engines, enabling Web searchers to find real-time information on top of their search queries. Although Twitter does have its share of detractors who believe that the microblogging service serves no useful purpose, it does seem to be a powerful force in how we use the Internet at this time in history.
Why not
Like other soscial media, Twitter can be a time thief. If you don’t have time to update youre account, it is better to drop it. Also, the popularity of Twitter has meant that it’s become a target for hackers. If your account is highjacked it can cause considerable embarrassment.
Level 1: getting started / Level 2: make it real (and useful) / Level 3: masterclass