With technology changing so fast these days, it can be hard to stay on top of the latest technological trends. One of the most popular trends that many people aren’t entirely familiar with, is known as Twitter. Yes, it’s true that nearly everyone has heard of the website – especially with Twitter spoken of in the news on a near daily basis, but despite its prevalence in the media, it remains a part of the World Wide Web that many people do not fully understand.
One of the most common and basic questions asked about Twitter is, “What is a Tweet?” The easiest way to answer this question is to visit the Twitter.com website and perform a quick search. Feel free to search for any topic that interests you, as virtually all topics already have a large number of Tweets associated with them.
Once you have come up with a topic and have completed your search, you will be taken to a results page. From here, you will see a list of short textual messages relating to your search term. All of the messages listed are what’s commonly referred to as a “Tweet”.
Each Tweet is limited to 140 characters and can contain various elements like links, hashtags, and @Mentions. Hashtags are simply words preceded by the “#” sign, which are used to group together posts of a similar topic. @Mentions, on the other hand, are used to link to a specific Twitter user. @Mentions are created using the @username format, where “username” is replaced with the actual username of the Twitter member that is being mentioned within the Tweet.
To send out your own Tweets using the Twitter network, you will need to sign up for an account. Signing up is fast, free, and doesn’t require the approval of an administrator. After signing up, you’ll be free to create your own Tweets immediately.
If in the past you found the concept of Tweets to be very strange and confusing, you are not alone. Luckily, it is one of those technologies that can be easily understood with a little research and explanation. By taking the time to It more about the whole Twitter phenomena, you too can take part in one of the Internet’s most popular trends.
