Twitter started out as a micro-blogging system that served the basic function of answering the question, “What am I doing now?” Over the last few years, this status-update service has grown in different directions, all of which have been user-driven. Although there are plenty of “I’m at work” updates floating around Twitter, users are expanding the horizons of Twitter into an emergency-update service, information exchange, marketing system, and a more robust status-update system.
- Emergency-update service. Users have turned to the mobile and instant posting power of Twitter to post information on wild fires, plane crashes, and other emergency situations. By using Twitter during the California wildfires, people were able to post which neighborhoods were in danger and which were safe. This allowed readers to see if their neighborhood was safe or if it had been burned.
- Information-exchange system. Twitter users in Atlanta could keep track of which gas stations had gasoline during the recent gas shortages. Major news stations such as CNN and FOX News are using Twitter to post headlines to news stories.
- Marketing system. Restaurants are starting to use Twitter to post their daily specials.
Twitter users have also created richer ways to post updates. They introduced a method to reply to posts directly to someone by starting the reply with “@” and followed by the username of the person they wanted to reply to (example: @eric These tags are awesome!).
Twitter users have also created “hashtags”. This is a way to add tags to Twitter posts to make them easier to follow or search. (For example, to follow posts related to the World Baseball Classic, you would search for #WBC.) For more hashtags, visit www.hashtags.org, a website dedicated to tracking and indexing hashtags.
Twitter is so much more than just a basic update system. Although limited to just 140 characters per post, people are finding new ways to use Twitter almost daily. Visit Twitter.com to set up your own free Twitter account and explore new ways that this service may be able to help you.
