With just turned six years, and Twitter accounts for more than 500 million registered profiles, as reported by The Telegraph at the end of last February -, of which about 140 million are active users, according to sources acknowledge that the company itself manages this service. It is estimated that every day to cross 340 million tweets, or entries, which makes the excellent health of an environment that generates so many compliments among its most active users as signs of skepticism among those who are wondering when will patent a clear business model Twitter.
If you just open up a Twitter account or if you are thinking of doing it, you might like to know what exactly is this service and operation and the peculiarities that contains the user community in which they exchange information, opinions, photographs , videos, and almost any other formula of interpersonal interaction over the Internet.
What exactly is Twitter?
The concept involves Twitter pretty between social network and microblogging service. First things first. On the one hand, it is inevitably a social network, where you can interact with others, whether for interest, hobby or, quite simply, because your friends also use Twitter. But on the other hand, the message is intensely submitted by the canal, so that he would have said Marshall McLuhan. And in Twitter have a space of only 140 characters to build your contribution.
However, although it may seem, can take to 140 characters long, especially when you know the full range of solutions that allow you to save space by using the language of this service. It is precisely this aspect as only coming from the conditioning of messages that can be shared on Twitter which has generated a kind of language and writing that has earned him the nickname of microblog, like a blog that just might contain a long sentence for each entry.
¿Twitter is like Facebook?
Radically, no. While the social network created by Mark Zuckerberg intended as an ecosystem in which the user creates links that requires acceptance by both parties, except in the case of the recent membership system, clearly inspired twittera - in Twitter the philosophy is another. In the case of the blue bird system is not necessary that the different users involved in Twitter are followed each other in order to know the content updated each. In other words, once you open an account and start to tweet everything you write will be warned by any other user who decides to follow you, whether you follow that user. Even those who are not registered on Twitter may be aware of your activity on this network, as long as they know your user name. However, as we shall see, there are ways to avoid being the focus of unwanted onlookers.
What does it take to open a Twitter account?
Only two things: the desire to explore this service and a valid email. To check, we require a full name, email and password. The name need not be real, and you can actually get to change at any time.
Will my user name must match my name?
Of course not. The Twitter user name is what identifies you as a first step to the rest of this social network subscribers. Once you start to run with it, you'll see that all communications you make to begin with the @ character followed immediately by your nickname. Later we will see the different ways that continue to interact with other users.
How do I start using Twitter?
As you register, you've started your career as a twitterer. In fact, in the next step the system itself will recommend some users who, for various reasons, enjoy a special popularity of the number of followers who receive state updates performed in real time. Also see that you can search based on very specific topics and interests, so that you are aware of everything they say celebrities from different fields or reference users in this network from the start.
After that, we come, now, with Twitter. We distinguish three parts: an upper bar, a column to the left and right column, rather wider than the previous one. The top bar gives access to several sections for managing Twitter:
Home: is the main screen of our activity on Twitter. It offers a view of both our interventions as updates of the contacts we are following.
Connect: This section discriminates the contents of the previous screen, and are published only the tweets, or entries, in which we have participated or have been referred to in some way.
See: here we can see at a quick glance some of the hottest topics in Twitter at all times, and the reactions of some users about such matters. Many of these issues may appear relevant to its corresponding reflected hashtag-a word that summarizes the topic in question, preceded by a pound sign or # - or simply reflected indexed by the search engine for Twitter.
More followers is a tool to expand our portfolio to get followers or followers.
Search: From this table we can find other users as well as certain key words or trending topics-topics of interest to most spoken on Twitter at all times.
Username: then, locate the section where the management of private information. In addition to configurable options to edit our own, have access to direct messages, or Direct Messages, which are the channel through which we can communicate with our supporters privately without anyone else can advise on message content. Later we will see some interesting points to consider in setting up our own.
Post a new tweet: here's the fun of Twitter. From here we update content in our timeline or Timeline. Remember that every character counts, so that references to other users, links or hashtags sacrifice effective space. However, in the case of links, we see that the system itself uses shortening direction that we will come handy for saving space on each tweet. The same will happen when we share photos, giving the option also to include our geographical location.
We have said that there are three distinct areas on the main interface of Twitter. One has already been described. The other two are simpler. On the one hand we have the right column, in which, as noted, see the activity that takes place between users who follow and us.
On the right of each entry, or tweet, we see several commands that allow us to perform several actions: respond to the user using the content you have provided as a reference; retweet the same content, so that participants could make such entry the rest of our fans, mark your favorites, which becomes a way of applauding the user responsible for that tweet, but in practice is also used to keep track of entries that we find interesting or want to review some other time - and finally, we can open the tweet, showing the number and type of interactions that has received it and when data is shared entry.
Finally, in the left column shows a series of shortcuts to some of the areas described above, in this case differentiated into four different blocks:
First, we see how many tweets have shared with the rest of the community, whether self-produced by retweets or as part of discussions with other users. It also reports the number of followers or followers we have, and the number of tweeters to those who are following. In the same block there is a login box to write new entries.
Then, the system suggests a number of Twitter accounts to which we could follow. This table includes a series of commands to update the list and, thus, find out if we have missed some interesting user must add a new follower.
We see how Twitter and tell us what are the trends and trending topics of the moment. Clicking on each of the proposed topics could take a look at the reactions of other users of the Twitter community, observe or participate in deciding these issues.
Finally, the box can warn credits Twitter information that might be of interest, such as access to official company blog, as well as data on the official application of the social network for different mobile platforms on the market.
So what I write can see everyone?
According to the initial configuration, it is. To avoid this, we have to lock our account. To do this, go to User access on the top bar and click Settings. You will see that agree to an administration panel with several sections distinguirás in a sidebar to the left, where you will see the sections "account", "password", "mobile", "notifications" and others -. Stay in the "account". In the main interface, right column, there will be several options editable. Find the one that says "protect my tweets." As the description says that paragraph, marking this box, only users that you grant permission will see your tickets, so they will not be accessible to any person accessing your profile from the Internet.
I've started using Twitter, but I get too many notifications in my email inbox. How I can help?
We in the configuration section. Now, touch go to the "notifications". You will see that are marked by default all possible situations in which you send Twitter an email informing you of news in your account on this service. I n the type of notifications you want to stop filling your inbox, you decide what you keep and which ones you delete. The process, of course, is reversible.
I do not understand most of the messages of the people I follow. What do all these acronyms?
At the time, and we tell you in tuexperto.com the meaning of most acronyms and commands that are used on Twitter . However, if you just estrenarte with this network, you do a quick review of the most common:
RT: retweet means, as we have already mentioned, is a command that means that we are sharing a tweet from another user.
@: Is the beginning of any user in the public mentions. If we start an entry with an at sign followed immediately by the nickname of a user, that entry will be visible only by the person to whom we refer, as well as all other users are following us both. For anyone visiting-registered or not on Twitter - our profile in the social network unlocked from the web, you can also see that entry. For other users who follow us may see the message but do not follow that we alluded to tuitero, would have to use a character that breaks the sequence. In practice it is usual to start the tweet with a period, followed by the at sign, the name of the user and the message in question.
DM: stands for Direct Message, or direct message. It is a type of private communication. In this case, only the sender and receiver can see the tweet message. So we can send a direct message to a user, it must necessarily follow us, but need not be the same situation in reverse. The structure of a DM is "D User Message", respecting the blanks.
#: Including the pad at the beginning of a word or sequence of words without spaces create a hashtag. Hashtags have the function, as already noted, generate common points of discussion, so using this command can access what once had been considered a chat room, having the opportunity to know what contributions do others to the question.
