What Is Twitter? – The Basics

You’ve probably heard about Twitter (http://twitter.com) but find yourself not really understanding what it is - why it matters - and how to use it.
To help answer these questions, we've written this Twitter 101 Guide to better explain the service, its benefits, and then offer a few tips and tricks that you may find helpful to you and your organization.

So what is twitter?

The official Twitter definition:

It is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users' updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.

Twitter is a free service blending instant messaging, social networking and wireless communication through computer and cell phones to distribute 140-character messages about what someone is doing.

A person opens a Twitter account and invites friends to join or connect with other members. A Twitterer gets a personal Web page that shows each post. One can “tweet” just to friends or read what others are saying about themselves. Twitter says the service is for “staying in touch and keeping up with friends no matter where you are or what you’re doing.”

Twitter was launched in July 2006 and won the Web Award in the blog category at the 2007 South by Southwest Conference in Austin, Texas.