How I Explain Twitter

Posted by David at 26 May, 2009, 9:00 am

Over the last few months more and more people have been asking me, “What is Twitter?”

While I could easily try and point them to some articles that are filled with both philosophical and tech speak that would probably leave them more befuddled than when they began, I chose instead to make it as simple as I could.

Twitter is a tool to answer the question “What are you doing?” with the power to hold a conversation across huge distances almost anywhere. It is the water cooler of the world.

While I think that this video, Twitter In Plain English, goes pretty far in explaining the very basic function of Twitter, I think it doesn’t touch on why Twitter has literally become a break through sensation that seemingly everyone… including your mom… is using.

But why is it so popular?

Twitter is in fact a very easy service to use. Once you sign up, all that is really required for you to do is to post updates in 140 characters or less via the web or using your cell phone and SMS Messaging. Because it is such a minimalistic service, it can also be integrated with other services, such as Facebook, very easily.

What seems to really have propelled Twitter into the social conscious is its broadcast use by such entities as CNN (CNNbrk) and its conversational power by such celebrities as Ashton Kutcher (aplusk). After Ashton became the first person to get over 1,000,000 people following his stream… then Oprah (oprah) got in on the bandwagon.

While Twitter was once the water cooler of the tech elite and their savvy cohorts, it has quickly become the water cooler to the world.

I’m using it. Will you?

Twitter