8/14/2019 Twitter: Why All Your Friends Won't Shut Up About It

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One TweeT Many TwiTTers

It’s more social than just reading your friend’sTweets about what they’re eating and when

they’re pooping. You can reply to someonedirectly by prefixing their username

with an @. So you talk “at” someone.Clever! If you’re following Friend-Ato track their updates but you’re notfollowing Friend-B, then anything

Friend-A says directly to Friend-B(and vice-versa) won’t show up for you.

The merits of being able to entirely removeFriend-B, who is a jerk, from your virtual life areobvious. So if that’s all Twitter is, why won’t yourfriends shut up about it? Because it’s a lot moreuseful than one might initially expect.

TweeT Vs. BlOg

Keeping a blog about what you do everyday is lame, but with Twitter it’s expected soyou don’t have to feel bad about not havinganything interesting to say. Yet as millions havediscovered, knowing what your friends had for

breakfast is actually more interesting than itsounds. Because updates are short, you’re morelikely to read what your extended social networkis up to. You gain an “ambient awareness” of your friends by doing this, bringing a wonderfullysatisfying glimpse into their daily lives. Butlike any kind of service where the user putsin what they want, if your friend only wants toTweet about poodles, he’s not going to be veryinteresting to follow. Of course, you can slapyour friend and tell him to Tweet more about how

he’s feeling, because then you don’t have to askhim later.

whO TweeTs?

Everyone! Presidents, publishers, corporations,celebrities and millions of people are Twitteringright now. Many use Twitter to get answers, likeOprah (OPrah) who recently asked how to getticks off her dog. Because anyone can reply, itfeels almost like normal everyday conversationbetween equals. Of course, with more than amillion follows, it’s unlikely that she’ll see your

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.reply. But you can still brag that “I was telling Oprah lastnight...” Because they can cut out the tabloid middle-man,many celebrities like Britney Spears (britneyspears) andSnoop Dogg (snoopdog) use Twitter to talk to their fansdirectly. You can check out what American President BarackObama (barackobama), or the Governator (schwarzenegger)is thinking. Shaquille O’Neal (THE_REAL_SHAQ) dissed Oprahfor TWEETING IN ALL CAPS. Popular writers such as NeilGaiman (neilhimself) use Twitter to tell fans about upcomingprojects, and what their dog is up to. Find more celebs onwww.celebritytweet.com.

Third-ParTy TweeTage

People have discovered ways to manipulate Twitter to addfunctionality. By using hashtags (such as #startrek or#soccer), conversations are grouped by topic or event, since

you can search for the specific hashtag and see what allpeople are saying about it. Thanks to this, it’s easy to followa live, global feed of tweets about a political debate or Lost .To peek at what’s currently “trending” on Twitter, you can usea website like TwitScoop (www.twitscoop.com) which showsyou which words are being spoken the most at that veryinstant. If you’re into video games, TweetMyGaming (www.tweetmygaming.com) tracks all the converations peoplehave about specific games. You can find many websitesusing Twitter as a foundation for their subjectmatter, andmany websites have their own Twitter accounts that you canfollow for updates on their updates.

wanT TO TwiTTer!

Step 1: go to www.twitter.com. Step 2: Sign up. Step 3:Tweet. It’s just that simple.

hOw Many ways Can a TwiTTerer TweeT?

The most direct way to Tweet is via the website, typingin your words of glory then clicking Submit. If you’re on aPC, programs such as TweetDeck (www.tweetdeck.com)give you a more robust set of tools to update and trackTweets with. You can also SMS a specific number to Tweet(this is detailed on the website), and get your friend’sTweets SMS’ed to you if you enable it for their username.On phones there are plenty of apps you can use such asTweetdeck (iPhone) or Gravity (Nokia).

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