I got an email this morning after my friend Janet from New Jersey joined Twitter. She knows how much I love Twitter from the hours of glee spent on my iPhone in hotel lobbies in Poland and the Czech Republic this summer together. She was wondering if I'd seen a particular tweet of hers (I hadn't) and needed an explanation of how Twitter differs from email or from a chat room; and in particular how tweeting generally differs to sending an @mention.
A Big Sports Hall
So, here is my analogy*. Imagine a big Sports Hall. Picture the kind of thing you have at a student freshers' or careers fair. There are stands everywhere, people are everywhere; some are handing leaflets out and some are walking round collecting and reading them. Most are doing both at various times. A tweet is a leaflet. It can contain anything: information, entertainment, a picture, a link to a blog or article - but it's short and limited in length to 140 characters.
When you walk in to the Hall you can go wherever you want. If you just stay at the door, you will have access to no leaflets at all. You need to jump in. Perhaps you have a friend you know who has a stall. You go over to them and pick up their leaflets and read them. Perhaps you see some of the big, noisy people who have a stand in the centre of the Hall in the limelight. They have have thousands of people picking up and reading their leaflets.
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| Twitter as a Giant Sports Hall |
As you walk past a stall what will instantly attract your attention is the latest leaflet of the particular person there; however you may choose to look back at every previous leaflet they have stored on their table. These are freely available if you're interested enough. Some people aren't at their stalls and so aren't handing anything out right at this moment, but you can take a look at what they've said in the past if you wanted to. One way this differs to Facebook is the nature of the stands: people can't spend ages trying to make themselves look interesting with loads of pictures of themselves etc.. all they have is a table with a short bio, a single picture. What people are interested in are the leaflets they're handing out. You have little more to assess a person on: it's much more dynamic and instant than other social media.
Of course you are not going to walk to continually read leaflets about what people had for lunch. This is why that particular stereotype about Twitter is so absurd. Occasionally, yes, it is amusing to see that someone can't cook baked beans on toast, but it is going to take a lot more of interest than that for people to return to a stall frequently to see the most recent leaflets.
What you see on your walk around the Hall creates your timeline. You may choose to come back to a particular stall holder on a regular basis, in which case you can be said to "follow" them. In effect you make a mental note that they will be on your route around the Hall each and every time you visit. You might find their leaflets uninteresting after a while and decide to "unfollow" them. It's all very casual indeed. The people who have the most interesting or entertaining things to say naturally attract lots of people who happen to visit their stall.
What makes things quite chaotic, and fun, is the element of people not just handing out leaflets, but the same people wandering round also collecting them and reading themselves. It's crazy in here, with leaflets strewn all over the floor and a hugely fast interchange of thoughts and ideas. The more stalls you visit, the faster the pile of leaflets you grab and have to read piles up. Some you will just flick through, others will really interest you. You can choose just to stick to visiting one or two stalls, in which case your visit (your timeline) will be much calmer; or you can run round grabbing loads of leaflets and being up to your neck in it in the high energy, high speed world that can be Twitter.
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| Masses of information: masses of fun |
You can choose to return to the Hall whenever you like, and as often as you like. Some people seem to live in here (*puts own hand up*... others visit for a short time maybe a couple of days a week). Certain times in the Hall are busy. Other times are much quieter (e.g. 3am when most stall holders are home asleep). It's important to note that any given moment when a person is handing out their leaflet, and if even they know 2000 people regularly visit your stall, they've no idea exactly which of their regular visitors will happen to be passing by at the time, and who will later come along and flick through their recent leaflets. Just because a leaflet is produced it does not mean every regular visitor will read it, at all.
This is the critical way it differs from email. If a stall holder therefore wants to make sure a specific person they know reads their leaflet, they have to pop it in an envelope and drop it over directly to the other person's stand. You do this on twitter by putting the name (eg. @pme200) in a tweet and it will appear in the @mentions section of the other person's timeline. The recipient may be at their stand and see the leaflet there and then, or perhaps later when they return to their stall if they are out of the Hall at the time.
The leaflet with someone's name on it, although addressed to them, is public. Anyone can read it - people who visit both your stall and theirs are highly likely to see it - but also anyone who feels so inclined and is looking through a pile of previous leaflets can read it. Again this is very different to the privacy of email. To deal with this Twitter also has direct messages which are more akin to actually mailing a confidential letter through the post to your friend's home address.
If someone really likes something you say they can shout out "Guys look at this" and hand your leaflet to anyone who passes their stall ("retweeting"). If that person has lots of regular visitors then your leaflet will get much more attention than just its exposure to the small number of people who visit your stall. In this way you might also attract new visitors who didn't previously know you to your stand and you'll be added to their route.
Twitter isn't just about either reading leaflets or writing them. It's also about responding to people's leaflets and this is where it's huge attraction is to me. In the mêlée of your handing out your leaflets, and picking up other people's and reading theirs, you can also respond by scribbling down messages of up to 140 characters on a leaflet and dropping it on their stand. Frequently this is just a two-way interchange, but remember everything (except direct messaging) that goes on in the Hall is public. Anyone else who is interested can chip in and a 3 way or even 4 way conversation can follow. It's not a chat room with hundreds of people watching whatever is said on a single stage though; the stage is just the area around your respective stalls with whoever happens to be walking by at the time.
Sometimes you have angry, annoying people who will come by your stall to cause trouble. Fortunately this happens relatively rarely. They are called "trolls" and they probably don't follow you (i.e. visit your stall regularly). They just want a fight, normally about politics. Fortunately Twitter provides an invisibility cloak à la Harry Potter. Chuck it over them ("block") and they can make as much noise as they like, you won't be able to see them or hear them.
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| Trolls: how we LOVE them! |
Searching is another way of finding interesting stands to visit on a regular basis, or just see what people are saying on a subject at a given time. Because it is public, if someone does a search and you've included that word on a leaflet, your leaflet will pop up. Anything you have direct messaged however, will still remain secret.
There are a few refinements to the above to mention too (thanks, @BrianInkster). A person can protect their tweets. This means only people they decide are allowed to may visit their stand and take a look at their leaflets. However, those people can still manually copy their leaflets (they'd have to do this one by one) and republish them on their own paper. Also, a few people choose to Twitwipe. What this means is they can delete all their old leaflets by putting them in a shredder. However, if anyone took a copy (a screenshot, akin to a photocopy) the leaflet will not be entirely gone.
Why On Earth Would You?
So given the description of chaos above (remember the Hall has tens of millions of people in it worldwide), why on earth would anyone even chose to enter the Hall? Well, information is valuable, it's fun, it's entertaining. You may find out news quicker than the usual channels. You'll get people's perspectives and opinions on the information. Those big name stall holders are here in person. You can send them a leaflet and they may respond and interact with you personally. You have no idea where they live privately, so this is a rare opportunity for public access.
You meet all sorts of ordinary people you don't know. By and large the atmosphere in the Hall is friendly, welcoming, and fun. You're never on your own in the Hall. If you've woken up with insomnia or are stuck with hours to kill, pop into the Hall, read some leaflets, respond to some, and write some of your own. Twitter is people: that is all it is. Many are kind, funny, supportive and far far nicer than you might ever have imagined. It brings people together and in a very effective, safe, modern day medium and it fulfills the most basic need that we all have for social interaction.
And if that hasn't convinced you.... well, just trust me, it's great, okay? *sighs*
NOW if you've got this far and want to know more... check out my Guide on How to Use Twitter (click link) which is actually probably more suited to intermediates than absolute beginners, but which I hope will be of interest!
* Any analogy can be pulled apart. Be kind to me! At the end of the day Twitter IS Twitter, nothing else. I just hope this helps.
And welcome Janet, @heyugly6. LOVE your avatar, this post is for you. Now visit some other stands: there are so many lovely, interesting people on here that you will get on great with!
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