Twitter for Dummies - Not All you want to know...

I use twitter in office like millions others do and some of them who don't understand what is it ask me lots of questions....and by this I am inspired to write my FAQ and few details about twitter and its features which millions of blogger's must have written about. Anyways I have to increase the number of post so here it comes....mind you it is not complete just a few of those which I can explain :)

Twitter: Twitter is a free social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. (first line in Wikipedia)

Tweets: Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author's profile page and delivered to the author's subscribers who are known as followers. In simple sentence, write down anything in 140 words and person who follows you will see it on his timeline.

Handle: Handle is a username which you create similar to GTalk, Yahoo IM, etc etc. Some put in real name and some do come with awesome alter ego handle.

Tweeple: People on twitter are called Tweeple

Followers: It is similar to being friend with someone on facebook. Well similar not same, here if you follow someone they can see your tweets. But the other person cannot see your tweet because he is not following you.







Timeline: This is again similar to Facebook wall where you will see tweets of Tweeples whom you are following.

RT (ReTweet): This is done when you like someones tweet on your timeline and want to show it to your  friend. It is bit simple, "@XYZ says twitter is awesome" and you agree with it and want to share with your group followers you just RT it and it will show as "RT: @XYZ says Twitter is awesome"and this can continue over and over again.





DM (Direct Message): This is an interesting feature of Twitter, you cannot DM who is not following you and vice versa. So to have a private chat you have to follow each other.

List: It is bit confusing for the new user but if you want to see your favorite tweeples in one page just add them to your List which you can name anything and click on it you will see what they have tweeted about. It is like a mini-follow list.

Hashtag (#tag): This works as a subject line and things which can be put together. The best use of it was when it rained heavily in Mumbai and people wanted to know the exact situation about Mumbai Rains, tweeples at the start or end of the tweet would just type #mumbairains which others can search and know about it instead of typing Mumbai or Rains which can give lots of info.

Reply: You can reply to another tweeple tweet by just using @username, this will be seen by the tweeple and he can reply you back. But make sure when you use @username other tweeple who follow you and other tweeple can see the tweet. So there is no privacy.

And you will always say, twitter is so difficult to understand and don't know what is going on. You say these things because you are on twitter web which is the last thing you should do. There are gazzillions of apps for desktop, MAC, mobile and iPhone that you would not want to go on twitter website to tweet. You just download one of those apps and you are on twitter.

Desktop App:
Destroy Twitter
TweetDeck
Seesmic Desktop
PeopleBrowsr

MAC Apps:
MAC Lounge
Nambu
Tweetie
TwitterPod

Mobile/iPhone Apps:
Snaptu
Gravity
Dabr