Twittering\' in Today\'s Media Culture

Twittering' in Today's Media Culture

From the time it gained popularity during Barack Obama's presidential election campaign last year (2008), Twitter has been gradually gaining ground as one of the most powerful and prevalently used social networking application in the Internet. The idea of Twitter, or 'twittering,' is pretty simple: it asks the user "what are you doing?," allows you to answer this question in 140 words or less, and publishes this "tweet" online. "Online" means a tweet can be published through the Internet, mobile texts, and/or instant messages (Twitter.com).

Twitter distinguishes itself from other social networking media or applications because it gives the user a choice on the length and amount information s/he would like to receive or be updated on. In addition, the user has the choice to look at updates or tweets from an individual, in the same way that s/he can also choose to ignore and/or not look at these tweets from another person or group. Compared to other social networking applications, like Facebook, for example, Twitter enables the user to 'regulate' the "flow of information" that comes through online. In Facebook, status updates (similar to "tweets") of the user's friends are published on other users' walls (as long as they are friends with the user), and the user will not be able to control the 'information traffic' in his/her Facebook wall. Twitter prevents this from happening, giving the user the option to follow or not follow a friend. If the user would like to see the tweets of an individual or group, then s/he can choose to 'follow'this individual or group; otherwise, the user can choose to 'not follow' them. This information regulation is a special feature of Twitter, distinguishing it from Facebook, Friendster, Multiply, and other social networking sites/applications.

Another interesting dimension to Twitter -- or 'tweeting,' for that matter -- is that users are not expected to answer exactly the question, "what are you doing?" The user can choose to answer this question, or may choose to publish any idea, thought, or information that s/he would like to share or just post, at the moment. Twitter, if anything, prevents information overload to its users, giving them a limit to the information posted, but at the same time (and ideally), succinctly capturing the thoughts of the user for that particular time. "What are you doing?" is just a catalyst, a platform from which users can take on to 'launch' and begin their throught process, and come up with an interesting, informative, and/or thought-provoking tweet.