Twitter Helps Students Stay Connected

Commentary Editor

   Twitter asks the question,“What are you doing?”

Courtesy of walhez.com

   By asking this question, Twitter allows users to communicate and stay connected with friends, family and co-workers through the quick exchange of messages and to see what people are doing right now. According to Twitter Support, people write short messages or tweets of 140 characters or fewer. Users post these messages to their profile or blogs, send messages to a follower and look for messages with Twitter search.

   People can join Twitter by going to http:/twitter.com/signup and click “Get Started-join!” and fill out the “Join the Conversation” form. After creating an account, users can search for people by name or username, import friends from other networks or invite friends via email.

   Users will be able to follow friends, organizations like The Voice, the New York Times and others, even President Obama. The Voice uses Twitter to give the University of Arkansas at Monticello and the College of Technologies updates about events happening on campus and in Crossett and McGehee in between the time it publishes. The Voice started this practice Nov. 6, 2008.

   When Users follow someone, they receive updates about the person or organization they choose to follow. When a user updates a post, it appears on the user’s Twitter home page. Twitter also offers updates from certain people to be sent to a user’s phone when a user registers their cell phone with Twitter.

   Twitter offers up to three ways users can update their profile: from the web in an update box, from a phone and from a mobile web browser using m.twitter.com. Users updating on-the-go can text in their update to the Twitter Web site by using the Twitter text message number. The number for the United States is 40404 and others are available on the Web site.

   Twitter offers users the freedom of whom they want to follow and who reads the tweets or messages they send. Twitter sends an e-mail to users when someone new follows them and users know how many followers they have by viewing the follower’s link on their profile page or home page’s sidebar. Users may choose to protect their profile by approving followers and keeping their updates out of search. Other users will have access to update posted information on an individual user’s home page from their followers and others who use this service.

   The idea for Twitter started with Jack Dorsey, the founder and chairman of Twitter, who became interested in the simple idea of being able to know what his friends were doing. A creative environment in San Francisco, Calif. funded Twitter in the beginning and it launched publicly in August of 2006. After becoming popular, Twitter Incorporated was founded in May 2007.

    For more information about Twitter, please click here.

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©The Voice 2009