When alot of people first learn about twitter, they think it is completely useless. These people just get the initial impression of “Why they heck do I care what my friends are doing every second of the day? ” However, people who just see this aspect of the site completely overlook the real usage and application of Twitter. Twitter is not just about telling people you are having coffee at 8:30 in the morning, rather the site is more about the sharing and transmission of information. Twitter is extremely useful when someone wants to find out something very specific, very fast. A very recent example of this would be the death of Michael Jackson. The people obsessed with celebrity sites would have most likely been the initial “tweeters” of the story, posting links to a site like tmz.com. From there, their followers would have become interested and started internal discussions using hashtags like #MJ #RIP #MichaelJackson, etc. In addition to all of those tweets, students on the UCLA campus (or other onlookers in L.A.) would be tweeting about the commotion and adding to the discussion under the hashtags. So, to summarize what I have just said, within (lets say like 20 min) millions of people know about the tragedy of Michael Jackson’s death, based off the sharing of information of millions of people. What really becomes cool, is that now (if your late to all the action) you can search twitter for the various hashtags involving Michael Jackson, and you are able to view thousands of tweets including links to outside blogs and sites along with original pictures of the UCLA hospital crowd and such. In essence, one cellphone picture of the commotion in L.A. can be instantly viewed by people interested in the developing story around the world. (A very small group of people who know something can relay that information to millions of people very, very quickly).
Twitter’s unique ability to share information can be applied in many ways. Just think of the usefulness of internationally sharing information instantly. There is a reason Twitter is growing so fast.
Andrew Rauh 