Twitter has quickly become part of our vocabulary. While it’s a relatively new application, Twitter has taken the world by storm.
Developed in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, the propecia idea behind Twitter was that friends and family could keep in touch with each other through short (less than 140 character) posts to their Twitter page. Anyone who “follows” you will see your updates and posts, also called “tweets”.
While it began with a simple premise, Twitter has grown exponentially since its inception. People can “tweet” from their cell phones or from a page that also helps them watch their friend’s Facebook and MySpace pages. Some people simply log into their Twitter account, add their updates and comment on others peoples’ updates. It’s social networking but with a innovative twist.
Twitter initially brought interest from people who are active in social networking, but very quickly businesses and others discovered the power of using Twitter. Thanks to its relative ease of use and its emphasis on short, snappy commenting, even the busiest of people can find a way to use Twitter to their advantage.
During the 2008 presidential campaign, now-President Obama’s campaign used the power of Twitter to let followers know where the candidate would be that day and to encourage people to come out and support kamagra cheapest him. The entertainer Diddy is known to keep an active page (his Twitter user name is Iamdiddy), in which he encourages followers to take charge of their lives and sometimes give more detail about his personal life than others might like.
Because Twitter will not release the number of active accounts at any one time, the real user numbers are unknown, but Forrester Research Group estimated in late 2008 that the number of active accounts was in the range of 5 million.
But in April 2009, actor Ashton Kutcher challenged CNN to a user challenge. He promised a large donation to a charity if he could get 1 million followers before CNN. Though CNN got into the act by actively campaigning for new followers, Kutcher ended up winning the contest. The news coverage of the challenge brought Twitter to the attention of the previously uninitiated Oprah Winfrey, who now twitters regularly.
It’s been suggested that Kutcher’s scheme actually helped Twitter gain many new users.
Finally, Twitter has become a go-to promotional tool for many businesses, which enjoy the free link on the user’s home page, and the ability to post about sales, promotions and new products. Web owners have discovered that using widgets can increase page views. The new tweetthissite widget found at www.tweetthissite.com, for example, can instantly provide a link to a web page on a user’s update page.
The popularity of Twitter could be at its peak, though it’s hard to tell. The possibilities are endless. What we do know is that its popularity has grown faster than likely even Dorsey could have imagined.
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