Twitter as a communication tool

Beyond "What Are You Doing"

Created in 2006 by Obvious Corp., Twitter user base has grown a lot since then. There are millions of users worldwide - in Brazil, for example, it is the second most popular social network (just behind Orkut). In the last couple of months, Twitter has appeared on several magazine covers (like Time) and on TV (Oprah's show is just one of the examples), which only increased its popularity and reach


By GABRIELA ZAGO
from Pelotas, BRAZIL


What can you do with 140 characters? Ask a Twitter user and they will show you a lot of examples. Twitter users not exactly see such constraint as a problem. It is actually a good vector for creativity, or even for organizing quick collective actions.

Twitter (http://twitter.com) is a microblogging tool in which users are - at least were, originally - invited to answer the question "What are you doing?" in a rigid limit of 140 characters - the same size of a SMS message. You can even update it from your cell phone, but that is just one of the varieties of different and innovative options to update and follow tweets.

If you think the website interface is too boring, that's not exactly a problem. There are many other tools you can use to read and update your tweets, such as TweetDeck, or Twitterrific (a whole list can be found in this wiki). Also, as you may have noted, there's a whole bunch of new vocabulary that accompanies it - tweet (how a message sent through the system is called), follow (when you add someone, you follow them), followers (the list of people who "follows" you, or the ones that read your "tweets"), twittosphere (just like the blogosphere, the collective of Twitter users and its uses), and so on.

Created in 2006 by Obvious Corp., Twitter user base has grown a lot since then. There are millions of users worldwide - in Brazil, for example, it is the second most popular social network (just behind Orkut). In the last couple of months, Twitter has appeared on several magazine covers (like Time) and on TV (Oprah's show is just one of the examples), which only increased its popularity and reach.

Although the original idea was to use it for posting personal messages, one interesting fact about Twitter is that its users have come up with a great variety of diverse uses for the tool. From digital activism to knowing what's happening to your plant. From news breaking to celebrity ego wars. From, well, actually telling what you are doing to discussing politics. Two of the most interesting user created features for the tool are the Replies and the Hashtags. Using the symbol "@" followed by a username allows you to direct a public message to someone. It will be showed on the Public Timeline - a public space where all tweets are gathered and showed, like a river of updates - , and also on the user's profile, under the tab "Replies". Messages can also be sent privately. Both strategies can be used for public discussion of facts, or even for mobilizing a collective action. The hash (#) sign, for instance, can be used before a word or expression on what is called the Hashtags - a way to organize conversations into topics in order to later be able to recover certain specific information. There's also the Trending Topics, a list where you can follow what other Twitter users are talking about (the list appears at Twitter search or on the right column of your home page at Twitter), in an interesting expression of the wisdom of the crowds.

Recently, Twitter played an important role as a communication and mobilization tool during Iran's elections - its importance was such that a scheduled maintenance of the system was delayed after a request from the US State Department.

Twitter's role and importance as a communication tool is increasing everyday more. New uses are invented on a daily basis. There's way much thing to do besides just answering to the "What are you doing?" question. Exploring the tool and it's character limit can help coming up with new uses for it.

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(Published: 18.07.2009.)