Twitter's http://twitter.com been around for a while, but recent high profile endorsements have definitely kicked it up a gear. The micro-blogging service enables users to post short messages whenever they feel like it. These build up to produce a life picture that conventional blogging can't. It's popular with celebrities because they can communicate directly with fans while retaining some control over what's sent out. Dedicated users gather mutual bands of followers who they can bounce ideas off and discuss matters of great or little significance.
When you first use Twitter, however, you could be forgiven for not understanding what the fuss is all about. When you've signed up at https://twitter.com/signup, you're invited to search for other friends who may be using the service, then you're deposited at a blank page with a text entry bar at the top labelled “What are you doing?”. You can enter a brief message here to start your twittering or click Find Friends to follow more people. When you follow someone you see his or her updates on this page, alongside your own ones. This page shows your twitter feed plus those of anyone you're following.
Following
Things don't really get interesting until you're following a number of people and you've begun to pick up your own followers. If you've found anyone you already know, follow them and they'll probably follow you back. To ensure that you've got some stuff to read, try following some news services like Guardian News http://twitter.com/guardiannews, CNN breaking news https://twitter.com/cnnbrk or BBC Technology https://twitter.com/bbctech. Doing this will make sure that you've got some messages to follow, but none of these services is likely to follow you back. You could also try adding some celebrities for interest. Stephen Fry https://twitter.com/stephenfry has nearly a hundred thousand followers at the time of writing and it's rising all the time. Philip Schofield https://twitter.com/Schofe is a very enthusiastic twitterer, as is Jonathan Ross https://twitter.com/Wossy. To follow one of these, go to the page indicated after signing into twitter and click Follow underneath the display picture. Click Home and you'll see updates from the people you're following.
Replying
Now try replying to one of the messages. Rest the mouse pointer on a message to highlight it and to the right you'll see two icons appear. One is a star, which you can click to add this message to your list of favourites. This is just like browser bookmarks only you're placing the short message or Tweet into your favourite list to retrieve whenever you click Favorites (sic) in the right hand pane. The other icon is a curved arrow, indicating a reply. Click this and the cursor will jump to the message entry box at the top of your home page. At the beginning of the message you'll see an @ sign, followed by the twitter name of the person you're sending it to. e.g. if replying to something Philip Schofield said, it will display @Schofe. Enter your message and click Update. It will appear on your home page and that of the person you sent it to. If you're message was to someone you know, you're likely to get a response. Celebrities with thousands of followers tend to get so many incoming messages that responding isn't practical. Stephen Fry wrote a blog entry to try and explain some of the challenges having such a vast number of followers presents. It's at www.stephenfry.com/blog/2009/01/29/twitter/, and well worth a read once you've got to grips with the basics of twitter.
Direct Messages
Your replies to anyone are publicly available. They appear on your twitter page at www.twitter.com/username (assuming that your user name is “username”). If you want to send a private message, click Direct Messages in the right hand pane. You can then opt to send a message directly to someone who is following you. Select the recipient's name from the drop down list. You can only send direct messages to people who follow you. Twitter users often refer to a direct message by the abbreviation DM.
Retweeting
If you see a message that starts RT, followed by a username it means that the person posting it has forwarded the message on from the original sender. This is known as a retweet or RT for short. It's a lot like an email forward, although you have to copy and paste the original message if you want to pass one on. Adding RT @username is a courtesy to the original poster.
Your Feed
What you can see and what other people see on Twitter can be quite confusing at first. When you click Home, the messages that appear on your home page are those that you've sent, plus any from people you're following. You'll also see public replies from people who you are following to other people you're following. If anyone has sent a message to a person you're not following, you won't see it here, but you can see it by clicking that person's username, as it will be listed on his or her profile.
Profiles
To see someone's profile, click their username. You'll see their short bio, a picture and whatever design they chose for their profile. The most recent tweets (that's the name for each short message, remember) that they've sent appear on this page, including any public replies they've made. What you won't see is any messages they've received from other people; you can get to these by clicking the username of someone who's been replied to. This action shows the original sender's profile, which will include the message they sent to elicit that reply. Confusing? Yes, but it makes sense once you go back through some replies to see the rest of the conversation. Give it a try.
This should be enough to get you started. More to follow!
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