Difference between revisions of "Twitter"

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===Emergency Response===
 
===Emergency Response===
Due to the popularity of Twitter and the platform it provides for quick information sharing, some city governments have adopted Twitter as a form of emergency response contact<ref> Medscape [http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/749183]</ref>. Citizens in need of fire, medical, or law enforcement aid can post a tweet to their local emergency response agency when it is inconvenient to call. Conversely, local governments can quickly deliver important information to citizens following on Twitter.
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Due to the popularity of Twitter and the platform it provides for quick information sharing, some city governments have adopted Twitter as a form of emergency response contact<ref> Medscape [http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/749183]</ref>.Citizens in need of fire, medical, or law enforcement aid can post a tweet to their local emergency response agency when it is inconvenient to call. Conversely, local governments can quickly deliver important information to citizens following on Twitter.
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Most notably, Japan has been engaging in talks surrounding the incorporation of Twitter into their the nation's emergency response system. The Fire and Disaster Management Agency recently held an event in Tokyo to discuss using Twitter as a communication tool during natural disasters. The idea is that large-scale disasters could knock out voice-based systems, making social networks the best option to communicate. After Japan,one of the world' most social media-savvy nations, relayed information on Twitter after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami discussions have ensued. Also this summer, people in the Philippines took to Twitter to coordinate relief efforts after flooding, while people in Turkey used Twitter in the wake of an earthquake. <ref name= "Japanese Social Media"> Tech News World. ''"Japan Sizes Up Social Media as an Emergency Response Tool"'' [http://www.technewsworld.com/story/76050.html.]</ref>.
  
 
===Privacy===
 
===Privacy===

Revision as of 18:51, 8 December 2012

Back • ↑Topics • ↑Categories
Twitter logo.jpg
Bird.png
twitter logo
Community populate me please
Membership open, free, registered
Privacy features that support privacy
Self Identity features that support identity
Features hashtag, tweets
Status
Launch Date March 21, 2006
Users 500 million [1]

Twitter is a free online microblogging service that allows users to post and share statuses or updates, known as tweets, in 140 characters or less. Users can follow the accounts of other users, and other users can follow them. Following on Twitter is asymmetric or asynchronous meaning following doesn't have to be mutual act, you can follow someone and they don't have to follow you back. This is in contrast to Facebook which is based on the symmetric or synchronous model of friending. When Twitter was first launched, it was often used by celebrities so their fans can follow them and offers a 'verified' ability where celebrities can prove who they are to Twitter and their fans. This helps eliminate fake pages and ensures validity for fans. More recently, Twitter has also become popular among non-celebrity people as well. The most notable feature of Twitter is its technology. The speed of news has become exponentially faster through the use of Twitter. You no longer need to wait for a news article to be written about breaking news, a single tweet can inform the public about the news. A prime example is the news of Osama bin Ladin's death being first released on Twitter.


History

A comparison of the number of active users on Twitter and other popular social networks - namely, Facebook and LinkedIn. Note: Values are displayed in millions. [2]

The founders of Twitter were Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Evan WIlliams and Biz Stone. Jack Dorsey launched Twitter on July 15th, 2006 where it rapidly gained users worldwide. Currently, it has over 380 million accounts and generates over 300 million tweets per day. People often refer to Twitter as "the SMS of the Internet[3]."

The company that operates Twitter (Twitter Inc.) is based in San Francisco. The word "twitter" was a perfect name for the site according to Dorsey. He explains that its definition is 'a short bust of inconsequential information' and 'chirps from birds'. [4] This refers to the 140 character limit.

Dorsey remained the chief executive officer of Twitter until October 16, 2008 when Evan Williams took over the CEO role, and Dorsey became chairman of the board. Williams stepped down as CEO 2 years later, in 2010, and Twitter's chief operating officer (COO), Dick Costolo became the new (and current) CEO. Dorsey remains an executive chairman to this day[3].

After Costolo took over, Twitter started to gain significantly more users. Twitter went from 400,000 tweets posted per quarter in 2007, to 100 million tweets posted per quarter in 2008, and by March 2010, users were sending 50 million tweets per day.[3]

The redesigned version of Twitter released in December 2011

The Twitter interface remained the same through much of this growth, but in late 2010, the company began rolling out a revamped Twitter. The new site now had the ability to see pictures and videos without leaving Twitter itself by supporting websites including YouTube and Flickr. These are generally hosted on twitpic.com. In December 2011, Twitter had launched a major redesign to create a more efficient and accessible user interface to attract new users. The design includes four labels on top of the site: home, connect, discover, and the user. The user's profile and trending topics are on the left side, while the tweets are on the right side. The new design is meant to compete with Facebook's new timeline interface to create a more timeless experience for the user.

Twitter's headquarters is located at 1355 Market Street in San Francisco, CA, and they have offices in New York, NY; Boston, MA; and San Antonio, TX.[3] In 2010 they had $140 million in revenue and over 600 employees. They are currently ranked 9th on Alexa and support many languages[3]. In December 2011, Twitter announced that it would move into its new headquarters in June 2012. The new headquarters were moved from the Folsom St. to the Market Square building on 1355 Market St. in San Francisco, CA. The company has plans to increase its workforce to about 3,000 by 2013[5].

In August of 2012, Twitter added controversial limits to their APIs, causing many third-parties who rely on Twitter's API to worry about the future of Twitter as a platform [6][7]. On September 18, 2012, Twitter launched a redesigned profile page with the addition of a header photo that appears above the user's Tweets. [8].

Common Terminology

  • Activity: Found in the "Discover" tab. Activity is a real-time dashboard to view what the people the user follows are doing on Twitter, view tweets that users have favorited or new user's they are following.
  • Connect: The "@" tab that allows the user to view interactions and mentions. Users are able to view who has favorited or RT tweets from the user, and all of the user's @replies and @mentions.
  • Direct Message: A direct message, commonly referred to as simply a message, is a private message sent between two users.
  • Discover: The "#" tab that allows the user to find tweets, activity, friends, and who to follow, or to browse categories.
  • Favorite: A tweet that has been marked with a star, indicating that the user who did the marking takes interest in that specific tweet.
  • Follow: To follow someone means you are subscribing to receive their tweets on your News Feed.
  • Follower: A follower is another user who follows you and receives your tweets on their News Feed.
  • Geolocation/Geotagging: The use of location data used in tweets to tell followers where the user is located when tweeting.
  • Handle: A handle is simply a username. All handles must start with an "@" symbol and contain any combination of letters, numbers, and symbols.
  • Hashtag: A hashtag is the "#" symbol and is used to indicate trending topics or specific words in a tweet. Tweets link when using the same hashtag.
  • Lists: A custom group where a user can filter their news feed into smaller groups based on their grouping.
  • Mention: To mention another user means to include the "@" symbol followed by their Twitter handle in the tweet. Twitter users tend to "mention" people if they want that user to see what they tweeted.
  • Modified Tweet: A tweet that has been shortened. A user can retweet a text and manually retweet a message with modifications. Signified by MT.
  • News Feed: A chronological list of tweets composed of the people a user follows. Also known as "Timeline" signified by TL.
  • Profile: The public appearance of a user's tweets with a customizable background, profile picture, and short biography.
  • Reply: A user can respond to a tweet sent by someone they follow, however the response can only be seen by other Twitter users if they follow them or if their tweets are unprotected.
  • Retweet: A tweet that has been tweeted again by a different user. Signified by RT.
  • Trending Topic: A popular subject being talked about on Twitter, indicated by a hashtag and calculated algorithmically. You can specify your location to see what is trending in your country or city.
  • Tweet: A message posted on Twitter containing 140 characters or less. Tweet is also a verb referring to the act of sending a message on Twitter.
  • Unfollow: To unfollow someone means you are unsubscribing to receive that users tweets on your News Feed.

Features

Twitter encourages you to "follow your interests[9]." It is common to follow your friends, industry experts, and celebrities. Once an account is set up, users' tweets are publicly visible by default. However, there is a setting that allows people to restrict their viewers by privatizing their account. People can "tweet" from a computer on the website, from smartphones, tablets, or other mobile devices with the Twitter app, or via text message (SMS). Applications have been developed by Twitter itself for Apple computers, Apple iOS devices, Android devices, and Blackberry devices. Other third party applications, such as UberSocial or HootSuite have also been developed to aid in the tweeting process.

Tweets

Not only can you tweet whatever you want, you can also reply to others tweets simply by mentioning the other user in your tweet. Mentioning someone can be done by using the "@" sign followed by their Twitter username. Users have the ability to mention as many users in one tweet as the 140 character restriction allows.

"Retweeting" is common on Twitter as well. If users want to copy someone's tweet so that their own followers see it, they can do so by retweeting it and either adding text to the retweet (if you have enough characters left) or simply retweet it with no additions. However, retweeting is only possible if the account that the user wishes to retweet is public. Otherwise, private accounts' tweets are not able to be retweeted.

To help with the small character limit in tweets, there are tons of URL shortening services that are commonly used. Some include: bit.ly, Twitpic, and Twitter has it's own t.co domain that shortens all URLs posted on the site. Users are then able to tweet photos and videos via these link shortening services.

Many websites, such as a site with articles or photos, give users the option to share the item with friends via social media sites, including Twitter. On Twitter, this will appear as a tweet with the ability to add your own comment, the link to the site, and usually a phrase with the name of the item and "via" the source.

In addition to the tweets that appear in one's newsfeed by the people they follow, companies can also pay to have tweets appear in every Twitter user's newsfeed as a promotion.

Trending Topics

One of Twitter's main features is the trending topics feature on the left sidebar of the site. Users can group together topics by the use of "hashtags." Hashtags are words or phrases starting with the "#" sign. Users may view what topics are trending in certain cities or what is trending worldwide. Trending topics become popular through word of mouth or marketing and are sometimes the way that people often first learn of breaking news. An example of the use of marketing in trending topics is with reality television shows. Such shows usually value audience feedback and they will ask their viewers to tweet about certain elements of the show with a specific hashtag. When the show is currently airing, this hashtag often becomes a trending topic.

Aside from the general trending topics, there are also promoted topics. In these promoted topics, companies can pay a fee to have their topic appear at the top of the list with the other trending topics that people look for.

Direct Messages

Other than tweeting, users have the ability to direct message or "DM" other users. Direct messages are privately sent messages that only the people you send it to can see. The only way two users can direct message each other is if they are both following each other.

Verified Accounts

A Twitter user can distinguish Justin Bieber's real account from all of his fake accounts by the check symbol.

Verified accounts were introduced on Twitter in order to create revenue as well as to protect corporations and celebrities from fake Twitter sites distributing inaccurate information to followers. These verified accounts are obtained through payment to Twitter. A verified account is displayed by a blue and white check symbol following the username of the individual of corporation. This is Twitter's way of confirming that the individual or corporation is who they claim to be. According to Twitter's website, they concentrate on verifying users that are highly sought to be followed. This includes users in acting, music, the government, fashion, politics, journalism, media, advertising, business, religion, and other areas of importance as such. The occasional business partner is verified, as are individuals that Twitter believes are at a high risk to be impersonated. In terms of verified accounts, Twitter seeks out those they'd like to verify proactively. The general public cannot request to be verified, but rather Twitter has to reach out to the user. Twitter's verified users have a unique feature to their profiles in that they have two timeline options - selecting "All" or "No" replies. The"All" option takes into account that some verified users tend to reply to mentions from their many followers. By selecting "All" the follower can see all of the verified user's replies in addition to their own tweets. The "No" option allows the viewer to see only the user's tweets and not their replies to others. Because the "All" option can make a verified profile seem crowded and cluttered, "No" is selected by default. [10]

Connect

The "Connect" feature of Twitter is one of four tabs available to users at the top of the Twitter website. Within Connect, there are two options that the user can view: "Interactions" and "Mentions". Interactions provides the user with a feed of all the interactions they have with other Twitter users. This includes when a user favorites their tweet, retweets their tweet, responds to their tweet, and mentions the user in a tweet by including their handle name. Mentions is simply just all the times that the user has been mentioned in a tweet by another Twitter user. This includes all retweets, replies, and simple mentions in which a user includes one's handle name in their tweet.

Discover

The "Discover" feature of Twitter is another one of the four tabs available to users at the top of the Twitter website. Within Discover, there are five options that the user can view.

The first is "Tweets" where the user can view "what's happening now, tailored for [them]." This is a live feed of tweets by users that this person is not necessarily following, but is similar to some of the accounts that the user is currently following.

The "Activity" section allows the user to view what the users of the accounts they are following are doing. This includes showing what they have favorited, retweeted, or which accounts they have started following.

The "Who to follow" section is "Twitter accounts suggested for you based on who you follow and more." By viewing this section, users can browse and simply request to follow an account right there.

The "Find Friends" section allows users to "Search [their] contacts for friends already on Twitter, or invite them via email." There are two search bars; one for searching for friends within the Twitter website and one for inviting friends via their email addresses.

The "Categories" section within DIscover lets users "Select topics [they're] interested in [and] follow people [they] want to hear from." There is a search bar that allows users to search a topic name, a person's full name, or a person's username. Below that are several general categories, such as Music, Sports, and Entertainment, with popular Twitter accounts within each category that the user could potentially be interested in following.

Celebrities and Twitter

Lady Gaga's verified twitter account

Twitter does not require mutuality in order to see celebrity users' tweets. Because of this feature, users feel closer to their idols where as other Social Networking sites do not have this tool. The prominence of celebrities on Twitter is demonstrated by the fact that Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Britney Spears all have more followers than the population of Sweden, Greece and Israel.

Ashton Kutcher was the first Twitter user to get 1,000,000 followers[11]. He challenged CNN, the breaking news twitter feed, to attain a million followers before him. This event was an illustration to changing ways Twitter could be used, and an insight into who Americans are paying attention to.

Justin Bieber actively tweets. His fans also actively tweet at and about him; 3.0% of all Twitter activity at any time is associated to Bieber and he has racks of servers solely devoted to him[12]. It has been said that when he stops tweeting for periods of time, his fans begin to believe that he has died.

Cristiano Ronaldo is the most followed athlete on Twitter. He currently has over 14 million followers.[13] F.C. Barcelona has the most followed team account, having accumulated approximately 14,500,000 followers.[14]

In late 2010, musical artist Alicia Keys instituted a social media campaign in which she would sign off of Twitter and other social media platforms to raise awareness of AIDS. Other celebrities including Lady Gaga, Usher, and Justin Timberlake also took part in the campaign. Keys' event, entitled Digital Life Sacrifice, benefitted the Keep a Child Alive Campaign. The Kardashian Sisters, Lady Gaga, Alicia Keys, Justin Timberlake and others all stopped going on Twitter until 1 million USD was raised for the charity[15]. The effects that celebrities can have via Twitter are both beneficial and mundane.

Twitter as a Moral Agent

As with other social media technologies, Twitter has been targeted as an example of how technology is reducing the quality of human interaction and language in society. Twitter, in particular, relies on fast-paced updates and abbreviations in order to meet the 140 character limitation. Because of this environment, interesting forms of spelling and slang have been developed through this concise interaction. Many English teachers have bemoaned the apparent deteriorating state of the vernacular.

Charity

Logo for TwitChange

Twitter is an emerging social media platform that has attracted many charitable causes and fundraising opportunities. One example is the TwitChange auctions. In these auctions, bidders try to have a celebrity follow them on twitter, retweet them or @mention them. To date, TwitChange has raised $500,000 and have had 200 celebrities bidded. All proceeds went to funding a center to care for individuals with disabilities. The next auction will support and benefit U.S. Armed Services and their families[16].

As mentioned earlier, another example is Celebs Quit Twitter for Charity. In 2010, celebrities vowed to not update their personal twitter pages until $1 million were raised for an AIDS charity. Fans and followers had to donate $10 to the cause in order to raise the needed funds and get their favorite celebrities to continue their tweeting activities[16].

These fundraising tactics have been extremely successful through using Twitter as a charity platform.

Emergency Response

Due to the popularity of Twitter and the platform it provides for quick information sharing, some city governments have adopted Twitter as a form of emergency response contact[17].Citizens in need of fire, medical, or law enforcement aid can post a tweet to their local emergency response agency when it is inconvenient to call. Conversely, local governments can quickly deliver important information to citizens following on Twitter.

Most notably, Japan has been engaging in talks surrounding the incorporation of Twitter into their the nation's emergency response system. The Fire and Disaster Management Agency recently held an event in Tokyo to discuss using Twitter as a communication tool during natural disasters. The idea is that large-scale disasters could knock out voice-based systems, making social networks the best option to communicate. After Japan,one of the world' most social media-savvy nations, relayed information on Twitter after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami discussions have ensued. Also this summer, people in the Philippines took to Twitter to coordinate relief efforts after flooding, while people in Turkey used Twitter in the wake of an earthquake. [18].

Privacy

Privacy, specifically Privacy in Social Networking, is another issue that arises with Twitter. When an account is set to private, other users cannot retweet a private user's tweets, however there is always the option to copy and paste a certain text or passage into a new tweet. In this way, the tweet will not show as one of your own tweets retweeted, but rather as a separate tweet from the second user. Either way, once the information is out to the world, it cannot be withdrawn. So, in essence, an account is never fully privatized. Especially high profile people like celebrities, their tweets are under a microscope. People are in essence creating a brand name for themselves. Who they follow, what the retweet, and what they tweet is how their reputation is made. It's not about who they actually are or their intentions, it's how Twitter makes them come across to the world.

In April 2010, Twitter and the United States Library of Congress announced a partnership in which every public tweet since Twitter's inception in 2006 will be digitally archived[19].

Organizing

Twitter has had an increased use in forms of community organizing, protesting, and creating awareness. Twitter's hasthtags provide a convenient means for users to collect data on a common page. For example, when the Iowa Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage the hashtag #iagaymarriage was created by The Des Moines Register to tweet about the event. Other news agencies used the same hashtag and it became a very common hashtag for news on the topic[20].


Twitter has created online citizen journalism giving people the ability to share images and news directly from the source of events. News sources can combine traditional reporting methods, with first hand accounts of tweets as seen in this aricle from The Lede on protesters being hit with tear gas at an Occupy protest in Oakland[21].

Twitter has been used to organize people for protests across the Middle East. The revolutions that have occured in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya are collectively called the Arab Sping. The use of social media is widely used for organization of protests because it is hard for the Internet to censor these types of communication. For example, in Egypt, the government tried to counter the tweets by shutting down Internet access to the country, but 10,000 people still got the message and arrived in Egypt's major cities to protest the current government. [22].Through the use of social media, there is the potential to organize oppostion and create revolutions.

See Also

External Links

References

  1. Business Insider. "CHART OF THE DAY: How Many Users Does Twitter REALLY Have?" [1]
  2. mediabistro. "How Does Twitter’s 100 Million Active Users Compare To Facebook And LinkedIn?" [2]
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Wikipedia:Twitter
  4. Los Angeles Times. "Twitter creator Jack Dorsey illuminates the site's founding document. Part I" [3]
  5. San Francisco Chronicle. "Twitter signs lease for headquarters in Mid-Market" [4]
  6. http://mashable.com/2012/08/16/twitter-api-big-changes/
  7. https://dev.twitter.com/blog/changes-coming-to-twitter-api
  8. Twitter Blog Page [5]
  9. Twitter.com [6]
  10. Twitter Help Center [7]
  11. CNET. "Ashton outmaneuvers CNN to 1 million on Twitter" [8]
  12. Gizmodo. "Justin Bieber Has Dedicated Servers at Twitter" [9]
  13. Cristiano Ronaldo's Twitter https://twitter.com/Cristiano
  14. F.C. Barcelona's Twitter https://twitter.com/FCBarcelona
  15. Huffington Post. " Lady Gaga, Alicia Keys To Sign Off Twitter For Charity " [10]
  16. 16.0 16.1 BlueGlass. "Wonderful Ways Twitter Has Been Used for Charity" [11]
  17. Medscape [12]
  18. Tech News World. "Japan Sizes Up Social Media as an Emergency Response Tool" [13]
  19. Library of Congress. "Twitter Donates Entire Tweet Archive to Library of Congress" [14]
  20. Nieman Journalism Lab. "Des Moines Register created Twitter hashtag for gay marriage ruling" [15]
  21. The New York Times. "Police Fire Tear Gas at Occupy Protesters in Oakland" [16]
  22. Arab Spring. Wikipedia. Retrieved 2011-12-19.

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