Twitter is a micro-blogging service for users to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing? It allows you to post messages or "tweets" of no more than 140 characters, which show up on your page on the Twitter site. You can also send direct messages to specific people and follow other users whose updates will also appear on your home page.
So how is it different from a text message which can do the same thing? Well, Twitter allows you to reach everyone simultaneously and it only takes one tweet to update everyone.
By default, Twitter accounts are open to the public. Anyone can view your updates. But you can restrict access and decide exactly who sees your tweets.
And here are some stats...about 600 tweets are being sent per second, or 50 million daily according to a post on Twitter's blog. And 73.5 million people visited the site via PC alone in January.
For answers to many of your questions about Twitter go to :
An excellent how-to covering all the basics from Howcast -
Tips on Using Twitter
Twitter FAQ`s -explaining what RT, HT, OH, ETC all mean.
To reply to a specific tweet type the @symbol, followed by that user's screen name before your message. e.g. @ddoc - thanks for the latest tweet or hover over a tweet and click the arrow icon.
To send a direct message to a specific user only, go to the user's profile page or direct messages page but NOT the Twitter Home screen.
Searching for specific "trends" (the most used words from tweets). Go to the search link and type in something like math education. http://search.twitter.com
This is a great site to find people to follow on Twitter; search by a subject, and you will get a list of people who have "tagged" themselves with that subject and you can also see their number of followers. Add your Twitter username and choose three tags for yourself, too!
Shortening long website addresses - such as when you would like to add a YouTube link to your tweet. Go to TinyURL or bit.ly another URL shortener, or http://tr.im/
Echofon (formerly Twitterfox) is a Firefox extension that notifies you of your friends' tweets on Twitter.
This extension adds a tiny icon on the status bar which notifies you when your friends update their tweets. Also it has a small text input field to update your tweets.
Add Twitterfall to your blog, wiki, or website. A way of viewing the latest "tweets" of upcoming trends and custom searches. On the Front Page, there is an example of Twitterfall set to the Education tag. Try some other searches such as web2.0, smartboards, literacy, K-12 education.
Managing your Tweets can be quite the challenge if you are following too many people. But there are a number of ways to handle this. Try using:
TweetDeck is a program that you can download onto your computer or you can add the app to your iPod touch. The program allows you to organize your tweets and do searches all from one screen.
The Twitter Times - gives you a personalized newspaper generated from the Twitter feed of people you follow, a view of the most tweeted news stories from major media sources and a view of the most tweeted links from popular Twitter lists.
Cadmus - will filter your stream to find similar tweets and will highlight popular conversations among your Twitter friends.
Feedtrace - will show you the Top 50 links to blog posts, articles, news, pictures, etc. ranked automatically based on popularity of the link, authority of the people linking, and the content you have liked and shared in the past.
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