Online service for distributing short messages among groups of recipients via personal computer or mobile telephone.
Twitter incorporates aspects of social networking Web sites, such as MySpace and Facebook, with instant-messaging technologies to create networks of users who can communicate throughout the day with brief messages, or “tweets.” A user types a tweet via mobile-phone keypad or computer and sends it to Twitter’s server, which relays it to a list of other users who have signed up to receive the sender’s tweets (known as followers) by either text message to their mobile phones or instant message to their personal computers. Tweets may be on any subject, ranging from jokes to news to dinner plans, but they cannot exceed 140 characters.
Twitter was written on a specialized Web-application framework of the Ruby computer-programming language. Its interface allows open adaptation and integration with other online services. Twitter was created in 2006 by the American podcasting company Odeo (later Obvious Corp.), and in 2007 the software spun off into its own entity. Twitter, Inc., which was founded on a heavy infusion of venture capital, offered the service to the public for free. As its popularity exploded around the world, however, costs escalated, and the company began adjusting its business model, scaling back free phone-based short message service (SMS) in many areas and seeking means of generating revenue.
While Twitter’s roots are in social, peer-to-peer (P2P) networking, businesses soon began sending tweets about promotions and events. Political campaigns have also used Twitter for promotion, as well as for communication between field organizers and workers. Twitter has been used by journalists and ordinary citizens to report from the scenes of breaking-news events. For example, most journalists were prevented from reporting on protest rallies in Tehrān following a disputed Iranian presidential election in June 2009. Though television and radio coverage had been suppressed, Iranian citizens used Twitter and social Web sites, such as Facebook, to share information concerning alleged voting irregularities and plans for protest marches. Perhaps as important as the eyewitness information going out by protesters was feedback they received from around the world in support of their efforts.
