Just like other forms of media Twitter is a way for people to communicate.  In fact, Twitter is an almost instantaneous way to send short concise messages to people who have elected to “listen”.  This election to listen is actually called “following” and the act of sending a Twitter message is referred to as “tweeting”.  Twitter is a hybrid of a blogging and text messaging.  Blogging gives you the ability to a post content/opinion and allow the world to see, participate and subscribe, while text messaging is typically a one to one communication of short sentences and even symbols or short hand.  When you combine both of those you get Twitter.

Another aspect to Twitter is not only the ability to be “followed”, but the fact that you can also follow others you’re interested in.  This is the foundation for any of the social media forms that exist.  It essentially gives you the ability to see what family, friends, colleagues or clients are up to and then respond with your own Tweet.

With this brief explanation of Twitter you should also view the video below, it gives a great synopsis of Twitter in a simplistic way…