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Oops, misread. 137 days until the rapture. Apocalypse in 290 days. Mark your calendar. http://www.wecanknow.com/ [link]
That was 112 characters of text posted to Twitter about a site that predicted the end of the world this year. In response, I receive an “lol” (laughing out loud) from my cousin on the other side of the U.S.
The idea behind Twitter is something called “micro-blogging” — ideas crammed into tiny messaages that are as portable as possible (140 characters fits within the 160-character limit of text messaging, for instance). Using a kind of shorthand, users of Twitter fit their ideas into these tiny spaces. And a whole new technology called URL shorterners takes the long web addresses we see in our Internet browser and trims them down to a handful of characters. For instance, the URL for last week’s lead story in this newspaper about cleaning up Wayland was http://www.dansvilleonline.com/news/x1682083895/Wayland-eyesore-to-get-beauty-makeover. That’s 86 chaacters — well over half the limit for Twitter. One service I checked will trim this to http://j.mp/gPUk6h – just 18 characters. And that leaves 122 characters for a personal comment on the news.
An estimated 2 million of these tiny messages — called “tweets” — are sent every day. The five most followed users are pop singer-songwriter Lady Gaga, @ladygaga, with 7.6 million followers; pop R&B singer Justin Bieber, @justinbieber, 6.5 million; recording artist Brittney Spears, @britneyspears, 6.5 million; Organizing for America, formerly the Obama presidential campaign, @BarackObama, 6.2 million; and actor Ashton Kutcher, @aplusk, 6.1 million. Not even Twitter’s own account is in the top 10 – they’re No. 11.
Somewhere further down on the list is this newspaper. With an account just days old the Genssee Country Express, @DansvilleNYnews, has five followers as of this writing.
On my personal account, I follow 93 users (including only one of the top 10) and just 35 people are following me. I’m what would be considered a light Twitter user: I have very few followers and I spend anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of hours each day perusing Twitter.
A lot of what happens on Twitter is retweeting — forwarding another person’s message. My latest, originally posted by someone I don’t know who lives in Boston: Did I wake up in 1991? Macaulay Culkin and Kirk Cameron are trending on Twitter! [link] Yes, on Monday night, these two stars from my elementary school years were suddenly in the news and getting a lot of chatter.
Oops, misread. 137 days until the rapture. Apocalypse in 290 days. Mark your calendar. http://www.wecanknow.com/ [link]
That was 112 characters of text posted to Twitter about a site that predicted the end of the world this year. In response, I receive an “lol” (laughing out loud) from my cousin on the other side of the U.S.
The idea behind Twitter is something called “micro-blogging” — ideas crammed into tiny messaages that are as portable as possible (140 characters fits within the 160-character limit of text messaging, for instance). Using a kind of shorthand, users of Twitter fit their ideas into these tiny spaces. And a whole new technology called URL shorterners takes the long web addresses we see in our Internet browser and trims them down to a handful of characters. For instance, the URL for last week’s lead story in this newspaper about cleaning up Wayland was http://www.dansvilleonline.com/news/x1682083895/Wayland-eyesore-to-get-beauty-makeover. That’s 86 chaacters — well over half the limit for Twitter. One service I checked will trim this to http://j.mp/gPUk6h – just 18 characters. And that leaves 122 characters for a personal comment on the news.
An estimated 2 million of these tiny messages — called “tweets” — are sent every day. The five most followed users are pop singer-songwriter Lady Gaga, @ladygaga, with 7.6 million followers; pop R&B singer Justin Bieber, @justinbieber, 6.5 million; recording artist Brittney Spears, @britneyspears, 6.5 million; Organizing for America, formerly the Obama presidential campaign, @BarackObama, 6.2 million; and actor Ashton Kutcher, @aplusk, 6.1 million. Not even Twitter’s own account is in the top 10 – they’re No. 11.
Somewhere further down on the list is this newspaper. With an account just days old the Genssee Country Express, @DansvilleNYnews, has five followers as of this writing.
On my personal account, I follow 93 users (including only one of the top 10) and just 35 people are following me. I’m what would be considered a light Twitter user: I have very few followers and I spend anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of hours each day perusing Twitter.
A lot of what happens on Twitter is retweeting — forwarding another person’s message. My latest, originally posted by someone I don’t know who lives in Boston: Did I wake up in 1991? Macaulay Culkin and Kirk Cameron are trending on Twitter! [link] Yes, on Monday night, these two stars from my elementary school years were suddenly in the news and getting a lot of chatter.
One of my favorite pastimes on Twitter is to comment on what I read from others. Two of my favorites from last week:
- A Time Magazine article reporting on high levels of mercury in skin lightening creams: When looks kill? “@TIME: EPA warns of high mercury levels in skin lightening creams | http://su.pr/1Rh5EU (via @TIMEHealthland)” [link]
- n The U.S. Postal Service announced last week that starting Jan. 14, first class stamps will be “forever stamps” – they won’t have denominations and we won’t have to buy penny stamps to make up the difference: It’s about time. I’m sick of 2-cent stamps. “@AP: APNewsBreak: New first-class stamps are ‘forever’: http://apne.ws/gHP6fC -MS” [link]
What was amazing with this last post is that I was reading the breaking news right on the Associated Press website at the exact same moment it was getting picked up by broadcast and print outlets. Just a few years ago, we wouldn’t have even thought this was possible. And it’s not just the AP or other media giants that can get information out instantly. Each of Twitter’s 75 million users have the same potential to reach this growing audience.
The real challenge on Twitter is taking your thoughts and distilling it down to 140 characters. This entire column, including headline and byline is somewhere near 4,000 characters. I think I will tweet, “My ideas don’t fit in this space” – 32 characters, enough left for a shortened URL and then some.
