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Twitter

E-mail and text messaging is old news.  You may have heard of, or be capable of blogging and podcasting.  However, the new trend in communication is Twitter.

Most of us would think a twit was someone who performs an embarrassing deed.  In the computer world it means something very different.

The online encyclopedia Wikipedia www.wikipedia.org defines Twitter 'as a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users updates known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length which are displayed on the user's profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them (known as followers).'

In basic terms it allows you to create or answer short questions / statements to a group of people.
You can send / receive tweets using either your mobile phone or computer. You can choose how you receive the tweets either on your Twitter internet page, instant messages or as a text message. Every different tweet you follow can be directed to any of the above communication methods.

Over the past few days on the news there has been coverage on the 3 young New Zealand students who were flown over to America to attend the Ellen Degeneres Show. Ellen has over 830,000 people following her tweets and she used Twitter to tell all these people about the student's goal of saving enough money to fly over to LA to see her live.
Check some of the student's tweets about the buildup and their thoughts after the trip at http://twitter.com/teamellen.
Below are some of the student's example tweets ....

'Just got an email from the Ellen show!!!'

'I just talked to the PRODUCER! of the Ellen Show!! That was INSANE!!!'

'Just got ANOTHER call from the Ellen Show! What are you Planning Ellen!?'

'We are going to LA!'

The likes of business people, politicians, celebrities, and newsmakers use Twitter to allow them to quickly communicate with a large number of people and keep them up to date with what they are up to.  Twitter can create a huge following.

By all accounts when the plane crashed into the Hudson River in America the first way this was communicated to the masses was via a tweet rather than from a major news broadcaster.

Twittering won't replace other forms of communication like e-mails and text messages - it is just a new form of communication that works great in certain circumstances.  For example if you send text messages to a group of people on a regular basis it would be quicker to twitter and everyone can join into the conversation.

If you want to become a twitterer go to www.twitter.com.