What is Twitter and How Does it Work

"So did you tweet today?" Heard a similar conversation recently? No, the two people you are technically eavesdropping on, are not referring to one's ability to chirp like a bird, but inquiring about their latest status update on the micro blogging revolution, Twitter. A website that allows users to put up information about themselves in just 140 characters, Twitter is the current darling of the virtual world, with everyone who wants to be someone logging in and contributing their two bits. So do you want to know what is Twitter and how it works? In this article, we help you understand how this website works.

What is Twitter?
Twitter is a micro blogging and social networking site that allows members to post messages or updates about themselves in as many as 140 characters. These short messages are called tweets and members can also add hyperlinks to tweets. According to the company itself, it is a service that allows to stay connected with each other. People all over the world tweet about all sorts of subjects, ranging from the latest news to what they ate for lunch. Twitter is also a great tool for marketing, with many public relation agencies reaching out to Twitter as the latest tool for buzz marketing. Several celebrities also use Twitter to connect with their fans and to spread word about their projects and performances.

Twitter is the brainchild of Jack Dorsey, who played around with the idea of using SMS to communicate with a small group. It was created by the members of the company Odeo who were in the business of podcasting. The original name of the service they worked towards creating was twttr which was a take on Flickr. Jack Dorsey also has said about the name of the service, "came across the word "twitter," and it was just perfect. The definition was "a short burst of inconsequential information," and "chirps from birds." And that's exactly what the product was." Twitter was launched as a site for the general public in 2006. Today the website has almost 100 million users from all over the world.

All the tweets that a member uploads is displayed on his or her profile page and is delivered to the subscribers of the author. These subscribers are known as followers of the author, who has control over who can or cannot have access to their status updates. Members can send out tweets using the website or with the help of applications available with smart phones and even through SMS. The website has no registration fees.

How Does Twitter Work?
So how does Twitter work? The technology that Twitter uses is a agnostic message routing system that accepts messages from SMS, mobile, instant messaging, websites, and even third party API or application programming interface projects. The technology that Twitter uses has very basic features of social networking unlike other networking websites like Facebook or MySpace. The site was designed using Adobe Photoshop and Omnigraffle and they work with a web application framework called Ruby on Rails, which allows them skeleton frameworks so that they do not have to redesign the website every time changes are made to the interface of the website.

For a user, Twitter has a very simple interface. If you want to learn how to use Twitter, all you need to do is the following. It has a box that where you need to type out your message which will be then send out to all your followers, appear on your homepage and on your profile. It will also appear on the public timeline of the website that is constantly updated whatever has been posted in the past 5 seconds. Once you have set up your account and are comfortable updating tweets, you can build your network by inviting users to follow you, learning how to get more followers on Twitter and following other member's updates. Twitter has quite a few limitations, one of the foremost being the inability of updating more than 140 characters at a time. Also limitation to text with an inability to add multimedia can be a stalling factor for prospective users. But despite these limitations Twitter has become extremely popular achieving near cult status all over the world. Once you have understood what is Twitter and how it works, and you become an addict, maneuvering your way around these limitations will come naturally to you.

Explaining how does Twitter work, in technical jargon, can become difficult to understand. The basics of this micro blogging website, from a user's point of view are very easy to understand. So now that you know everything you would have wanted to know, maybe you should climb the bandwagon as well.