As we all know, Twitter is one of the best social platforms in the world. In foreign countries, almost everyone, including national dignitaries, entertainment stars and many grassroots people, knows about this network platform. Former US President Obama, NBA star Neil, Google, White House and many news media have also opened accounts on Twitter. As of March 31, 2016, Twitter had an average of 310 million active users per month; the similar domestic social platform Weibo had an average of 261 million active users per month as of March 2016. The publicity and promotion benefits of the Twitter platform are obvious. So what is Twitter?
Twiter was officially established on March 21, 2006. It is an online social microblogging service platform, known as “Twitter” in Chinese. The name Twiter comes from a bird’s call. The founder believes that bird calls are short, frequent and fast, which is in line with the connotation of the website, so Twitter was chosen as the website name. Twiter uses wireless networks, wired networks and communication technologies for instant communication, which is a typical application of microblogging. The concept of Twitter is that it connects everyone to what’s happening in the world right now. That is, it allows everyone to freely propose and share ideas and information at any time. In simple terms, it means publishing any information at any time, any place, and in any way, sharing it with people who want to know the information, and also knowing the latest progress of the people (or things) you are concerned about at the first time. Based on this concept, many ways to use Twitter are closer to information sharing. For example, if you care about your brother or younger brother’s recent life status, whether he or she has made progress or encountered trouble, then you only need to follow your brother or younger brother, and their status updates will be seen by you at the first time. Therefore, Twitter is also described as “the SMS service of the Internet”.
On the Twitter website, non-registered users can read public tweets (Tweet), while registered users can publish messages through the Twitter website, SMS or various application software, and the message will reach the users who choose to care about you at the first time. It is precisely because of this that Twitter can easily enable users to maintain long-term, efficient, and low-cost contact with their friends, so Twitter has an information dissemination effect that other social platforms cannot match.