Have You Ever Heard of Twitter?

A Social Networking Phenomenon

	By Matt Stevens, Lifestyle

Have ever heard of twitter? No, I’m not talking about a bird call, I’m talking about the latest technological craze. You may have heard about it on inauguration day as thousands of “twitterers” were active to record their experiences.

For those of you who don’t know what Twitter is, it is a micro-blogging social networking application. Micro-blogging allows users to publish text up to 140 characters in length for other users to see. Many young people micro-blog regularly via the popular social networking website facebook.com. The best way to understand how micro-blogging works is to see it in action. Examples:

thetrojantimes: What’s life like for a college freshmen? Find out on www.thetrojantimes.com.

susie q: Stuck in traffic. Will be a few minutes late to choir practice.

johnny appleseed: Heading over to Pope Wellness to workout. Anyone want to join me?

Twitter is unique because, not only does it publish micro-blogs to its website, but also sends out a mass text message update to the subscribers’ cell phones. Users can see who subscribes to or “follows” their twitter updates. Twitter also has many other options like the ability to temporarily turn off text updates--in case your in class or a meeting--and it can be synced with your facebook status; if you update on twitter, it updates on facebook.

Follow The Trojan Times on Twitter! It only takes a few steps to join. Go to twitter.com/thetrojantimes and click on “Join Today!” We have also added a Twitter updates box to the top right corner of our website.

What are your thoughts on twitter? Let us know by commenting below.

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