Have You Twittered Lately?

May 30, 2009 by Cristina Suarez

How it works

Twitter was created in March 2006 through a privately funded startup company. Since then, it has taken a life of its own. It is a short messaging device — meaning you can update anyone on what you are doing, at any time. And you can find out breaking news just as quickly as it takes someone to “tweet” it!

It’s amazing how much can be told within the confines of 140 characters. However, it is a paradox of sorts. The space limit helps weed out the BS (excuse my French), yet only allows for BS. After all, what can be learned but trivial information that only takes a few minutes of your time or thoughts and thus just a few words to describe. However, subscribers can submit unlimited amounts of these short notes throughout the day, making it very easy to get to know someone very quickly. Once you find a person (either by their real name, alias or e-mail address), click “follow.” They will be notified, then choose to follow you back or not (for example, we are following Tina Fey, but she’s not following us). Now, you’ve entered a relationship with this person where (depending on how into it they are) you’ll find out everything from their favorite cereal to their thoughts on the economic stimulus plan.

What we are finding out

The ultimate way to know what’s up? Yes. Unnecessary? Sometimes. I mean, five seconds ago we learned that Ashton Kutcher had a deep convo with his kids about responsibility. One OutLouder had a Starbucks energy drink and another earned a 93% on a math test. Congrats! So, we learned one of our people likes math… we’ll write it down just in case a math-ish story comes up. But wait, he just said he’s in math class learning more crap he’ll never use. So, he doesn’t like it, he’s just good at it…

Who’s doing it

You’d think that the first group to catch on would be gossipy middle schoolers or internet-addicted stalkers, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Professionals, political figures and even celebrities have a heavy hand in the trend. The Miami Herald’s opinion writer Leonard Pitts reported that while the president was addressing elected reps, Republican Rep. Robert Wittman twittered “I am sitting behind Sens Graham and McCain” and Rep. Denny Rehberg said “Place is on fire.” In light of this, Twitter is helping make seemingly untouchable people and events very real and personal. Yet, this isn’t to say that a lot of “I’m hungry”-esque tweets don’t make it into the mix.

If you’re on Twitter, follow us! If not, join! Twitter Us

By Cristina Suarez