Continuing my exploration of Twitter for my ethnography, I thought I’d provide a bit of insight as to what folks do with Twitter….

Twitter allows users to post short messages, called tweets, 140 characters or less, to a network of contacts and has been referred to as a system for micro-blogging.  Rather than posting lengthy entries as would be found on a weblog, Twitters’ limited number of characters allows only for short messages.  Once a message is created, it is sent to all the users on the creator’s contact list.  This allows for rapid and efficient delivery to large groups of users as compared to sending messages via email or text message.  Messages can also be sent privately to selected users rather than the entire contact list if desired.  In either case, in order to receive these messages, a user must be “following” the user who creates the message.   To follow another user, one must add him or her as a contact.  This can be done by entering the user’s email address in the box under the find and follow tab. Contacts can also be added from other user’s list of followers by clicking the follow button.  Some users choose to follow only a small group with specific interests, others may follow hundreds, even thousands of user.