One of the most difficult things to do in a Twitter guide is to define Twitter. That’s because Twitter means different things to different people. At the heart of it – Twitter can be called a ‘micro blogging’ service under the umbrella of social networking tools centered around the basic question – ‘What are you doing?’

We’ll begin our Twitter week with an attempt to answer the question ‘What is Twitter?‘ We aim to make the meaning of twitter clear to the beginners and also to discover different interpretations of twitter from the experts. We welcome all comments and feedback in order to understand Twitter better and use it effectively.

Let the joyride begin!

To give you a better idea of Twitter, here are few definitions of Twitter from around the web:

Wikipedia:

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users’ updates known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length which are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them (known as followers). Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow anybody to access them. Users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS) or external applications. The service is free to use over the Internet, but using SMS may incur phone service provider fees.

Twitter.com:

What? Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

Why? Because even basic updates are meaningful to family members, friends, or colleagues—especially when they’re timely.

• Eating soup? Research shows that moms want to know.
• Running late to a meeting? Your co–workers might find that useful.
• Partying? Your friends may want to join you.

BBC:

Twitter is an online service for letting people know what you’re up to at any time of day or night.

Summing up:

Summarizing the available information about Twitter we can safely conclude that Twitter is:

• A micro-blogging service – collection of really short(limited to 140 characters) posts
• A social networking tool
• A informal collaboration service
• A tool for quick information sharing
• A great way to keep in instant touch with friends and acquaintances
• A community and relationship building tool
• An extremely powerful marketing platform
• A way to take branding further
• A medium for promotion
• A tool for breaking news and trends
• A tool for idol-worship
• A real time medium of communication
• MOST IMPORTANTLY – Twitter can be everything you want it to be!

Twitter in Plain English:

Watch this Twitter video here by Commoncraft titled ‘Twitter in plain english’  – http://www.threetipsaday.com/2009/04/what-is-twitter-in-plain-english/

This will definitely clear any doubts that you still have regarding how Twitter works!

Having understood what Twitter is, in the next post we’ll try to understand how Twitter works, and basic Twitter terminology and features. We hope you’ll be around for company.

We look forward to hearing from you – your comments and feedback are welcome.

P.S.: We just discovered an article on TechCrunch on the hype around Twitter: Read here.