Twitter is an Internet platform for the distribution of short text messages and thus a form of microblogging. Anyone who registers on Twitter can send text messages to all other Twitter users who have subscribed to the writer’s messages. These subscribers are referred to as “followers” on Twitter.
- If you take a look at Twitter for the first time, the short message service will seem quite confusing.
- Co-inventor Jack Dorsey came up with the Twitter idea when he was working on notification systems in the taxi industry.
- Twitter is all about “followers”: Anyone interested in messages from Twitter can subscribe to them.
The pulse of the world in a few characters
If you take a look at Twitter for the first time, the short message service will seem quite confusing. But with the right settings, Twitter is a convenient tool to quickly get information from all over the world or even from your own circle of friends.
Service is often dismissed as the place where strangers tell each other what they ate for breakfast. But the basic idea of Twitter works differently: You only follow the messages from people who interest you. From the jumble of millions of votes, only those that are relevant to you are filtered out and the whole concept of Twitter makes sense – a service with which you can reach any number of people at once with short messages.
Twitter is an information machine
With around 330 million monthly users, Twitter has become a global information machine. Newspapers, bloggers, politicians, celebrities or completely strangers send links to articles, pictures or videos, fresh news, just your own thoughts – or which cereal was available for breakfast.
Co-inventor Jack Dorsey came up with the Twitter idea when he was working on notification systems in the taxi industry. The former limitation of 140 characters is a holdover from the early days when Twitter was initially based on SMS. Since September 2016, the limit has increased to 240 characters.
How does the “twittering” work?
Registered users can post short messages using their cell phone or computer. The 280-character snippets – called tweets – are generally available to everyone. The basic question is: “What’s happening?” (What is happening?). It is important to express yourself briefly, but still witty. With short links, however, longer texts, pictures and videos can be integrated.
How do I get the reports?
Twitter is all about “followers”: Anyone interested in messages from Twitter can subscribe to them, on Twitter in German: follow. The text bits (“tweets”) of all members you follow appear in a chronological list. Regardless of this, users can call up the tweets of individual Twitterers by calling up their profile.
What is @ and # all about?
These two characters in the tweets confuse many newbies. The “@” makes it possible to specifically mention and contact a twitterer, for example in the format “@MaxMustermann”. What follows afterwards appears prominently in a separate field for the person written to. So he can answer quickly. In the best case scenario, this creates a public conversation that is also of interest to others.
The diamond marks a keyword – the Twitter community calls this function ” hashtag ” (hash: English word for diamond, tag: keyword). Twitterers use it to emphasize important or ironic words. The hashtag also helps to find messages on a topic. Under #Fukushima, for example, you can find tweets about the wrecked reactor in Japan, under # RP11 about the Internet conference Re: publica in April 2011. As a rule of thumb, Twitter states that “only use hashtags on tweets that relate to the topic”.
What is the abbreviation RT?
RT stands for Retweet – i.e. the repetition of a Twitter message. This function ensures that messages spread through the network at breakneck speed.
How do I find interesting topics?
It is best to look for friends, family and colleagues first. Twitter offers to import address books to make the first step easier. The profile of the contacts shows who they are following – a good suggestion. Numerous media are now active on Twitter, both German-speaking and international. Another good place to start is tweetranking.com, where twitterers recommend interesting people on Twitter in different categories.
