Everybody and I mean everybody is talking (or tweeting) about Twitter. I swear, I just didn’t get it. But, the talkers kept on talking, the bloggers blogging and I finally gave in. I just Twittered my first tweet a few minutes ago.
At its most basic, Twitter just asks you to answer the simple question, “What are you doing now?”. When I first starting hearing about it in the mainstream media, Twitter was mostly brushed off as a casual curiosity without much use. Now that it’s on fire, answering that simple question really isn’t about answering that simple question. It’s about creating a way for you to tell others what you’re doing. Friends, family, colleagues and even strangers can follow you and respond to your tweets on Twitter. You can easily communicate with a group of your followers or even, say, just your family. What are you doing now? I’m writing a post about Twitter. What are you doing now? I’m picking up groceries, I’ll be home in 15 min.
So, it’s not so basic after all. I think that’s been the main problem with introducing newcomers to the service. It just isn’t easy to grasp without some real world examples of how people are using it. To that end, I’ll start tweeting away and see if I can help you understand it better. I do know that a lot of Internet marketers have picked up on the phenomenon and there have been some interesting findings about how Twitter accounts rank in the SERPs (um, search engine results pages for the uninitiated). If I get as addicted as everyone else, I’ll follow this up and let you know how it’s going. If I really adopt it, I’ll even add a widget to the blog so you can follow me right here.
Oh, and you can tweet in many ways and from many places. Here are some applications that work with Twitter to get you started.
If you’re using Twitter, let me know how you’re using it and whether you love it, hate it or are indifferent in the comments below. If you like you can follow me on Twitter. Follow me and I’ll follow you.
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