So much more than 140 characters

I am an avid user of the wonderful ‘twitterverse’. It is by far my preferred social networking tool. I love that Twitter provides me with the opportunity to completely customise a personal news and information feed. For me, this means following providers of tweets that offer quality world, sports and music news. I also follow a range of helpful sources that provide information on my interests; guitars, fitness, sports and cooking. Twitter has given me the chance to completely individualise news to suit me. I can select the sources and journalists I like, to provide me with the news I want. It has relieved me of the need to filter through pages and pages of tabloid reporting and articles written to serve the social and political agendas of the media giants.

As Twitter grows it is becoming so much more than merely an entertaining social networking site that allows me my own custom news and information feed. Corporations use Twitter as a key marketing tool, where they can build identity, promote brands, perform market research and interact with their customer base. Twitter now provides a website (https://business.twitter.com/), educating businesses on how they can effectively optimise usage of the site to serve their commercial purposes. Celebrities use the site to promote their latest endeavours and to communicate with fans eager to believe that their favourite actor or singer is within reach. As at December 7 2012, Twitter stats website www.twittercounter.com recorded musicians Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Katy Perry as being the three most followed people on Twitter.

Significantly, Twitter has proven itself to be a global safety net in times of crisis. Shortly after the horrific Japanese earthquake in 2011, twitter was flooded with more than a thousand tweets per minute providing updates and information on the situation. For those directly affected by the tragedy, twitter was an avenue to access information imperative to survival, replacing the normal communication channels which had been crippled by the disaster. The ease of accessing twitter via a mobile device means that twitter can be used to gather information in times where electricity, telephones, the internet and other information sources are not accessible.

Unfortunately, the ease with which information can be spread via Twitter is not always used to serve positive purposes. For every example of Twitter being used to spread valuable information, there are examples of Twitter being used for seedy purposes. Many a celebrity or world figure has been the victim of a hoax death via Twitter. In 2012 alone, Morgan Freeman, Paris Hilton, Bill Cosby and Adam Sandler have all had news of their ‘death’ spread rapidly over Twitter, only for it to later be revealed that the news was inaccurate. For all the good that Twitter can serve, examples of hoax deaths and other poor taste information being spread on the site means that the old saying “don't believe everything you read”, has never been more applicable.

REFERENCES:
Cross M, 2011, Bloggerati, Twitterati: How Blogs and Twitter are Transforming Popular Culture, Praeger, California.

Hernandez, B 2012, Twitter Rewind: Big Highlights From 2012 to 2006, Mashable, viewed December 4 2012, <mashable.com/2012/03/21/history-of-twitter-timeline/>.

McIntyre, D 2009, 10 Ways Twitter Will Change American Business, Time.com, viewed December 4 2012, <http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1901188_1901207_1901196,00.html>.

Twitter Counter 2012, Viewed December 7 2012, <www.twittercounter.com/pages/100>.

Twitter 2012, Twitter for Business, Twitter.com, viewed December 4 2012, https://business.twitter.com/.