What is Twitter? Helping you keep up with the cool kids.

OK, I can’t tell you the number of people in the past few months who have asked me about Twitter (mostly my mother). Or told me what nonsense it is (mostly people who have never used/seen it before). Or told me I am too old to be using it (thank YOU little brother). Plus, you would need to have been hiding under the proverbial stone to not have read one of the million and two articles about this new social networking phenomenon. There are many people who think this is just another flybenight new fangled technie thing. Sorry, but I’m here to tell you that you need to get with it kids (you can thank me later). And here are the top reasons why:

• Like Facebook before it (hello, 500 millionth user), Twitter seems to be one of these ones that is going to hang around. So unless you are over 70, feel like retiring into the dark ages (yes, before Lady GaGa existed), or are completely intent on making some sort of anti-social networking point – you should at least know what it’s all about. THEN you can poo-poo it to your heart’s content. Just not to me. I will thrash you in an argument about it. I’m just saying.
• If you have kids, you NEED to know about it. Shortly after they are born and just before they ask when they can get their ears pierced, they will start to use a computer and badger you about getting their own profile. God, by the time I have finished writing this post, they will probably be writing their own blogs. But clearly not as topical or amusing as this one. Anyway, the point is that you NEED to know what your kids are up to (or want to be up to). It is not enough to stick your head in the sand. For more on what you need to do in regards to kids and Facebook in particular, I highly recommend Mia Freedman’s article on the topic.
• If you work in media, in marketing, in sports, in anything to do with anyone well-known, in journalism, in writing, in publishing, in PR, in technology, in politics, in advertising, with consumer goods, with music etc etc, then Twitter will help your business. Or not being on it will not help your business. If you know what I mean. It’s been used in the most recent US presidential campaign, has spawned several criminal prosecutions, in long distance education, in emergencies, in protests, in news reporting. The Times now publishes a list of top tweets each day. Seriously, Twitter is hip to the groove. It’s gone too far now, I’m sorry folks – too many people are on it, and if you don’t know what it is and what it can and can’t do, you will fall behind.

And now for the big stuff – what is it? I’ll try not to be too condescending to you poor little neo-luddites:

• Twitter is essentially a website where you register to get your own profile which then allows you to write short ‘tweets’ to people that ‘follow’ you. You click on people and then ‘follow’ them in order to get updated on what they post. They often then follow you back, and then you might follow people they follow, they might follow people that follow you, etc etc, and that is how you end up like Lily Allen with a couple of million followers. Or it might be that she is a massive celebrity, one or the other.
• Tweets have a maximum of 140 characters. You can have tweets where it’s just general statements written to everyone that follows you (and anyone who is interested, unless you make them private), follow and view updates from other users and send a private or public reply to other Twitterers. (eg “top work @barackobama on the whole health care thing”).
• Tweets used to be a bit like status updates on Facebook, but they’ve evolved now – in the words of Mashable ‘ they take the shape of shared links to interesting content on the web, conversations about hot topics, photos, videos, music and real-time accounts from people who are in the midst of a newsworthy event, crisis or natural disaster.’
• You can look at Twitter just by logging onto www.twitter.com, but most users download a free program to their computer and/or iPhone to use it better. I use Tweetdeck which is free and took 5 secs to download.

People use Twitter in different ways:

• To follow famous people and get an insider’s impression of what celebrities do and say. Sometimes these Twitter accounts are quite obviously written by the stars themselves (hello again Lily) and sometimes these are clearly written by a PR adviser (Brit’s is clearly one of these, as it is not mental).
• To follow like minded people and have conversations all day long with normal friends, new friends, business associates, potential customers etc. Honestly, some of these drive me mad – it’s like they are having an email conversation in public. Get an email account people.
• To follow news services, business and people you are interested in. This is the way I roll – I follow several of my favourite writers, journalists, sections of various newspapers around the world. They write things and often link to articles which I can then read at my leisure. I think about it like my own private little newspaper with all my favourite bits. I don’t actually tweet that much, I just read. I like hearing what India Knight is linking to in London, and I love reading Marieke Hardy’s cynical comments on what is happening in Australian media. I am interested in what The Times Alpha Mummy section is linking to, and I am endlessly entertained by the comedic comments of Jenny the Bloggess and some random guy in North London called ‘the man who fell asleep’. I also follow Barack, KRudd, Kathy Lette, my old work, the online butcher who delivers my meat and an Iraqi who tweets about his living conditions. OK, and I also wasted 3 seconds of my life today looking at a picture that Danii Minogue posted of what she had for breakfast. Yes, I am ashamed.

Anyhoo – more on Twitter here by those far more technically eloquent than me.

So have I convinced you? Like an anti-smoking ad, I’m sure those who were already on it are nodding and talking with their families about how wise I am (and yet still so witty and good looking – hard to believe so much can come in one package isn’t it?), whilst those who were cynical remain non-smokers. Don’t – pick up that ciggie – click on our Twitter icon up here and check it out.

Over and out.

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