Twitter is the name of a popular online social network. Formed in March 2006 by Jack, Williams, Biz Stone and Noah, Twitter is an online social networking service, made up of 140-character message extensively known as Tweet. Twitter started its formal journey by July 2006. Feelings, news or information of any kind are shared through tweets. Today Twitter has at least 500 million users. Among the registered users, the number of active users is more than 300 million. Short messages are sent and read by users via Twitter. Twitter gained worldwide recognition radically. Twitter is also known as “the SMS of the Internet.” Registered users are allowed to read and post tweets. Unregistered users can not tweet but they have access to read the tweets posted by others. Users access Twitter through website or mobile handset in some certain countries. Twitter Inc. is positioned in San Francisco. Around the world, it has more than 25 offices. Even as the service of Tweeter is free, using it through SMS may lay users open to service fees.
Twitter profiles are generally open because anyone in the world can see the tweets. But if one customizes profile selecting private option, then it will be restricted. Users “follow” each other to remain updated and communicate with the people they like. Generally people follow their favorite celebrities, politicians and other public figures through Twitter and thus, it has got much significance. It is the easy way to find out the latest news about important subjects of one’s choice. To judge popularity both tweets and retweets can be tracked. Retweeting is forwarding a tweet by the users.
Countries like USA, UK, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Netherlands, France, India, and South Africa mostly use Twitter.
Twitter-a popular online social network
History:
An undergraduate student of New York University named Jack Dorsey communicated with a small group by means of SMS. “Twttr” was the code of the service, idea of which Evan Williams attributed to Noah Glass later. The source of their inspiration to use the service was Flickr and five-character American SMS short codes. Twitter.com was by then being used. Just after 6 months, the group purchased the domain twttr. Then they altered the service name from twttr to Twitter. On 21 March, 2006 Dorsey published the first Twitter message at 9:50 PM (PST). The message was “just setting up my twttr”.
Accessing Twitter through Mobile:
Users may easily use twitter from mobile handset visiting mobile.twitter.com. iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows Phone etc. are the mobile apps of Twitter. The website has different versions like mobile devices, SMS and MMS. The use of third party applications has been limited by Twitter since long.
Procedure of opening Twitter Account:
Opening Twitter account is easy. To have a Twitter account just visit: www.twitter.com. There, you will find the sign up box. You may visit directly www.twitter.com/signup too. After that, enter your full name, a valid phone number, and password (security code). Then, click on Sign up. You will get a text message with a code which is to authenticate your phone number. You must enter the verification code. After Signing up for Twitter, you will select your own username. For security reason double-check your name, phone number, password and username. Finally, Click on create my account. You can also use your email address to sign up with Twitter.
Increasing popularity of Twitter:
Twitter has seen tremendous growth since the beginning. Per quarter, around 40 million tweets were posted in 2007. In 2008, around 100 million tweets were posted per quarter. Twitter secured 3rd highest place as the social networking site in January, 2009. Twitter got more than 70,000 registered applications by March 2010. Twitter’s usage increases significantly during special events. For instance, fans posted 2,940 tweets per second during the 2010 FIFA World Cup. About 140 million tweets were posted by users daily by March 2011. During its sixth birthday on 21 March 2012, Twitter users increased to 140 million posting 340 million tweets everyday. In 2013, about 200 million users used Twitter and 60% of their tweets were sent via mobile. In 2015, Twitter got a commerce ads tech firm named “TellApart” with $532 million stock.
Advantages of Twitter:
Twitter contains valuable information. People automatically get messages on home page from users they follow. It is free though in some cases users have to pay very meager service charge. Twitter provides high level security by defending personal information. People can join twitter within a minute. As people of all kind use twitter, one can easily follow his/her favorite persons. Entrepreneur may target people for business purpose sharing information of their services. Thus, it helps develop relationship between consumers and partners. Users can use their twitter id to log in to other websites as well as post comment.
Disadvantages of Twitter:
Along with enormous advantages Twitter has some disadvantages too. Some use fake twitter accounts to deceive and pursue others. Some dishonest users spread spam messages or post spam tweets. Twitter sometimes is caught packed up due to overload of large number of users. Addiction to twitter kills precious time.
However, the disadvantages of Twitter are avoidable. So, Twitter is an excellent creation to promote communication.
