Lana asked for someone to explain Twitter on the group's email so I thought I'd post something here...

At the very basic level Twitter allows users to create status updates. The question above the form field is "What are you doing?" Most people post what's on their mind, interesting things they find, the latest news, messages to friends, etc. Another name for the type of service offered on Twitter is micro-blogging (there is a 140 character limit on all Twitter posts).

Unlike Facebook where people become friends and are seemingly bound to each other until one of them breaks off the relationship, Twitter works on a following system. I can follow you to see your updates but if you don't follow me back, you won't see mine.

If you are a creative person you may follow similar minded people or top creative professionals to gain some insight from their posts, and bounce ideas and share with others through your posts. If you were looking for a specific creative topic you may use the search function to see if someone posted something related to that topic recently.

The recent buzz around Twitter in a business-sense is what's being called real-time search. Basically you can search Twitter for any topic and see what's being said in real-time about it (up to the second). http://search.twitter... -- Example: Companies are searching Twitter to see what people are saying about their brands. Some are taking the next step and interacting with users that are talking about their products. If someone complains about a brand on Twitter (for all the world to see), the company may contact that person to try and rectify the situation. So now we see Twitter as a customer service platform, which BestBuy recently has been promoting heavily. http://twitter.com/tw...

This is just a general overview but I hope it will help you get started.

Bill Moynihan
http://taweet.com...