twitterictionary
In the past year I’ve been migrating my twitter account into my facebook account. In that process twitter has expanded, rapidly, and has brought with it, it’s own set of rules and a bit of language. The @ symbols and the “RT” and the bit.ly’s and more.
Just this past week someone said to me,
Your facebook messages are so cryptic. What are all those numbers, letters, and symbols?
So, without creating a twitterictionary – because I’m sure that already exists, I will attempt to explain what these things mean. Especially so that later, you can refer to this post as a mini twitorial. (Upon further research, it does exist – it’s called Tiwtteronary.)
RT – stands for “ReTweet” it’s when someone you follow on twiter makes a statement that you really want others to see, or a link that is worth passing along, this is a RT.
bit.ly – a url shortening site, just like tinyurl. Twitter only allows users to post 140 characters, so that things will be kept short and sweet (tweet) – (I can’t help myself). With this 140 character limit you don’t want/need to post links that will steal all of those characters away. thus bit.ly and tinyurl.com
tweet- is a singular message sent through twitter by someone.
@- this is the call center for your twitter name. it’s how i differentiate someone’s real name, ie Jeremy Smith, and his twitter name @s1174430, as you can see a twitter name can be a collection of numbers (in his case a student id # from Cedarville days) or your actual name, like mine @kellycain.
When someone wants to speak “at” me through twitter, they will put @kellycain
Twitpic – this is a service that allows you to upload pictures and send them to twitter – sort of like a new version of photo bucket or webshots (wow, remember webshots?)
Tweetdeck, Tweetie, Twitterific- these are all 3rd party apps, that make twitter easy (and fun!) to use. Most of these can also be found on many phones.
DM’s- Direct Messages are a way to send links, messages, etc through twitter without the whole wide world seeing your thoughts.
Syncing with Facebook – the average facebook user changes their status through facebook, most twitter users, sync their twitter account with their Facebook account so that they don’t have to update in both places.
Twitter in Plan English – I have posted this before, but it’s too good not to post again.
Twitter in Plain English from 140.tw on Vimeo.
Why get on twitter? What’s the purpose? Honestly – it’s fun. It’s a way to stay connected with people. I find that I know when my friends are sick, pregnant, even when they are going to the store. I find out when new albums are coming out, when Zack Morris appears on the Jimmy Fallon show and much more.
Twitter is a way to find out useful and useless information in a fun way.
With that said, follow me on twitter. Tell them I sent you.
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