I don’t use Twitter or know anyone in my social circle that does use it, but apparently it’s the next big thing. Twitter is essentially a micro blogging service where the posts are referred to as ‘tweets’; these tweets are limited to 140 characters. Twitter has roughly 200 million registered viewers around the world; all of these users collectively produce 1200 tweets per second, 110 million tweets a day which results in there being 10 terabytes of information a day, 40% of it being pointless, useless information with no coherent meaning. You can also ‘follow’ people on Twitter, which means you will be updated and be able to keep a close eye on their tweets. Twitter is used by various types of people including politicians like Barack Obama; celebrities like Ashton Kutcher, musicians like Justin Bieber and even activists have made use of Twitter.
Twitter has many applications and is versatile as it can be used during different scenarios and events as a form of quick, effective communication between people particularly during a crisis event. Though Twitter has been characterised partially by the useless and superficial tweets which make up 40% of its daily information output, it can supply people in a crisis situation “…with actionable factual information” (Farrell et al 2010) which is vital in that type of situation for family members trying to establish contact with and find each other. Twitter has also been utilized to political effect by activists, most notably in Tunisia and Egypt in the Middle-East. Twitter was used as a method of communication amongst the activists in both countries; information that was instructional and organizational in nature was used in conjunction with traditional methods of activism to oust the likes of Tunisian President Ben Ali and Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak from office in their respective countries.
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The Twitter Density map indicates that the micro blogging service is used mostly in the USA, South America, Western Europe, Indonesia and Japan. |
On a more superficial note, Twitter is used by celebrities to keep their fans updated on their activities no matter how insignificant, make derogatory comments about other celebrities as well as posting their opinions on public and foreign events. Twitter can be a great promotional tool for celebrities but it can also be used against them, twitter can be considered a double-edged sword in this way. For instance, the musician Bow Wow tweeted this message to the Twitterverse, “Face numb im whippin the lambo. Tipsy as f**k. Just left the @livmiami Im fu**ed up!!! Ohhhh damn. Y i drive the Lambo Chris might have to drive after next spot.” Celebrities can tarnish the all-important image they are trying to sell to their fans by showing how flawed they are in various ways. From a marketing perspective this is bad but, it can help the followers of these celebrities to connect with them and build a rapport on an intimate level, looking past the constructed image and into a real person.
Sinnappan, Suku; Farrell, Cathy; and Stewart, Elizabeth, "Priceless Tweets! A Study on Twitter Messages Posted During Crisis: Black Saturday" (2010). ACIS 2010 Proceedings. Paper 39. http://aisel.aisnet.org/acis2010/39
http://www.freshnetworks.com/blog/2011/03/twitter-numbers-and-statistics/
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