Twitter was launched in August 2006, but is still a new kid on the block in the big picture.
What on earth is Twitter, you might ask?
Twitter is a “micro-blogging” application that allows you to send short status updates of up to 140 characters to your Twitter feed, telling anyone who’s reading what you’re doing or thinking about. Anyone can view your Twitter feed online, and you can connect with or “follow” other Twitter users, and they can follow you.
And your next question, may well be “What’s the point?”
You will see the Twitter updates, or “Tweets” of all the people you are following in your aggregated Twitter feed when you’re logged in. You can see the VGroup Twitter feed here http://twitter.com/vgroup.
Twitter users used to be able to send and receive Tweets via SMS, but this service has been put on hold due to the cost to Twitter, as the service has become astonishingly popular. At the time of writing this piece there are 3 328 420 “Twitterers” using the service.
So if you needed the crash course – that’s what Twitter is. And your next question, may well be “What’s the point?”
Good question. On a personal, social level, I can understand why many people just consider it more “noise”. Do you really want to know what people had for breakfast, I hear you say? The point here is that the content of Tweets is up to the Twitterer, not Twitter, so don’t shoot the messenger. (Meaning Twitter – block the Twitterer by all means if they bore you!)
The key thing about Twitter is it’s a totally ambient communication stream. You don’t have to follow it, and you don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to. It asks nothing from you, if you don’t have time for it. If you turn your Twitter email alerts off, you won’t even know it’s there.
But when you do feel like engaging, the uses are many.
On a social level, you can see what your friends are up to, and how their feeling, find out the latest in their lives even when you haven’t spoken to someone for weeks – allowing you to stay, and feel connected with people despite the demands of modern life.
Twitter allows you to build a community around you of people – either socially or professionally, or both, that are into the same things as you. You can share stuff, learn stuff, ask for stuff, challenge stuff.
Every time I ask my Twitter followers a question – where’s a good place in Hoxton Square to eat? Can anyone recommend a free web-based CRM system? We’re hiring – anyone know a top-flight Flash developer? I always get at least one useful answer.
Thousands of companies, some small, some huge, have cottoned on to the benefits of Twitter for customer service, PR, brand loyalty and visibility.
Like business blogging, the use of Twitter as part of business communications provides the opportunity to inject some personality into the face of the company, keep customers and prospects up to date with new developments, and encourage conversation and feedback. With this, of course, comes the risk of negative feedback, but Twitter also provides the opportunity to respond quickly and to everyone at once.
Twitter is great for building hype in the lead up to an event or launch, and to report on and event hour by hour, minute by minute, if desired, for those that cannot make it, or who will read the Twitter feed later.
Service updates can made quickly and easily via Twitter, allowing customers to check the Twitter feed before they sit around on hold, and facilitating transparent communication with customers about issues and problems.
Large corporations use Twitter internally to help departments keep abreast of what others are doing, where people are, and share information. No more trying to find your boss when you can check their Twitter feed and see that they are actually in Aberdeen for the afternoon.
The micro-blogging concept has inspired several applications (such as yammer.com) based on the Twitter concept for use in the corporate environment for keeping colleagues connected and in touch in an ambient way.
The Twitter API (Application Programming Interface) allows developers to integrate Twitter into websites and applications, meaning that potentially, Twitter can become part of a companies communications mix for disseminating information quickly, easily and instantly.
Check out the VGroup Blog homepage to see how we’ve used the Twitter API on a very simple level to integrate our latest Tweet into our blog.
Check out our Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/vgroup, and if you feel like trying Twitter out yourself, be sure to add us to your following.