Archive for November, 2008

Unless you’ve been hiding a rock for the past few months, you probably know what twitter is. Heck, you probably have a twitter account so you can tweet away anything that happened to you. But what is it really about twitter that’s making even mainstream media outlets like CNN look up and take notice?

It could be the fact that twitter is quick and instantaneous. Updates are sent out and broadcast in real-time; never mind that there is a limit of only 140 characters. In this day and age of text shortcuts, a lot can be said in that measly number of characters, including incident reports and first-hand accounts of historic events.

It could also be that twitter has become so popular because many celebrities and star athletes have their own accounts, where fans can follow their posts very easily. It has given the stars another way to get closer to their fans and supporters. It could be argued that stars now tweet because it’s popular instaed of the other way around and we’ll probably end up with a chicken and egg debate.

In any case, twitter is the in thing now and there’s no telling how long it will be in that place.