Twitter as a Communication Technology

 

Alpesh J. Patel

East Carolina University

ICTN 6850 – Spring 2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Abstract

 

 

            Twitter is becoming a widely accepted form of communication in everyday life. Twitter may become an integrated part of everyday communication in the current globalized world. This paper presents a general overview of Twitter technology, its history, its application in everyday life, and some pros and cons of the technology. Other issues pertaining to Twitter technology will also be addressed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Introduction:

            Twitter is an emerging form of communication that is used to communicate quickly to an audience via Internet, mobile devices, and other mediums. It lets users tell the world what they’re doing in a brief statement. By definition, “Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates known as tweets” (Twitter, 2009). The updates are shown on the user’s page when he or she logs in to Twitter. Even though using twitter can tell the world what a person is doing, many people have used it for cases of emergency, terrorist plots, natural disasters, and other ideas. There is a great mobility function for twitter users. “Users can receive updates via SMS, RSS, or applications like TwitterMobile” (Twitter, 2009). It lets a user get “tweets” on their phone so they can always have a direct communication with the world regardless of their location.

            Twitter was founded by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams (Twitter, 2009). It began as a research and development project inside San Francisco podcasting company Odeo in March 2006 (Twitter, 2009). After its inception, Twitter began to globally gain popularity due to its quickness. On April 22, 2008, a Japanese language version of Twitter was created (Twitter, 2009). The popularity of Twitter rose in such a way that Japanese became the second most use language on Twitter (Twitter, 2009). Twitter experienced outages in 2007 due to its rising popularity. One prime example of the rise of Twitter’s popularity was determined when a US Airways flight landed on the Hudson river in January 2009 and one of the people on the boat that came for help, tweeted the picture of the plane on the Hudson river before any major media outlet were at the scene. To gain higher viewer ratings, the media started using Twitter as an outlet to gain audience. “In 2008, CNN began setting up Twitter pages for anchors and reading tweets during broadcasts” (Twitter, 2009). The adoption of Twitter gave a wider audience to CNN due to the direct impact it has on a social community.

            On April 7, 2007, a security vulnerability was reported when a user posted a message in Twitter without the user’s knowledge (Twitter, 2009). Twitter has developed an optional PIN and other efforts to combat this vulnerability, but the idea of spam is still rampant. Twitter will have to answer whether spam will be allowed in order to continue its popularity.

Advantages of Twitter:

There are numerous advantages of Twitter. One of the many advantages of Twitter is that it gives mobility by having tweets on mobile devices.  It has the ability to bring the world closer together. It has the ability to give information without the bias of media. It is known for its socially open communication. There are several business advantages with Twitter as well. “A twitter user can read Tweets on their mobile phone or other mobile devices” (Spencer, 2008). It can give people a chance to interact with others where in a normal basis; it can be impossible (Spencer, 2008). Twitter has real-time messaging so it is immediate in response (Spencer, 2008). Due to the ability of re-tweets, Twitter can be a powerful amplifier for information (Shankland, 2009). For someone who is looking for a job, twitter can be a great networking tool because a user can gain contacts by communicating with people on a daily basis (Fernando, 2008). A user can get helpful resources on anything that is causing a problem for them. Some examples are: making a bookshelf, reading a book, or cooking with a new recipe. There are numerous occasions where people have developed creative methods to solve everyday problems. With a brief communication with other people, there is a chance that other people can either solve or assist with a dilemma. Another advantage to twitter is that it is the first known product in its category and has the most users (Parkhill, 2008). By being the first in its category, Twitter has a very large audience which can open the possibilities of the advantages of networking or solving a problem. “By encouraging shorter posts, it lowers user’s requirement of time and thought investment” (Java, et. al 2007). Twitter can be very useful to promote clients due to its portability (Topper, 2009). A few small organizations can use Twitter’s portability due to not having strict policies compared to large organizations. It can be very useful for small business to gain clients and seek help to promote their business.  

When using Twitter.com, you can follow people like Al Gore and CEO of Twitter. Roger’s relative advantage change theory is very good for this form of communication in terms of open communication with upper management and visibility to the user (Rogers, 1996). Twitter allows you to create friends from around the world. Roger’s availability change theory is dramatic with Twitter due to its frequent updates (Rogers, 1996). With the restrictions of 140 characters in length, Roger’s complexity change theory is greatly reduced (Rogers, 1996). Roger’s observability change theory can be used as an example for the rise of popularity with this change of communication (Rogers, 1996).

Disadvantages of Twitter:

One of the many disadvantages of Twitter is that it is limited to 140 characters. Another disadvantage of Twitter is that it reserves the right to share personal information with third parties which can lead to spam. There is an application called TwittAd which allows you to rent out space on your profile page to an advertiser (CNN “Here comes the Twitter Ads”, 2008). Currently, Twitter has taken a hands-off approach to this application (CNN “Here comes the Twitter Ads”, 2008). Perhaps Twitter does not want to ruin the idea of openness which allows spam to exist as a disadvantage. Complex ideas cannot be convey in Twitter due to the length of 140 characters (Spencer, 2008). The inability to convey complex ideas can be beneficial in terms of quickness, but it can lead to other forms of communications for complex ideas. It will take a large amount of time to create relationships in Twitter because an open dialog has to be established with other users (Spencer, 2008). A user has to be active in Twitter to create relationship with other people. A commercial Twitter spamming tool called tweettornado.com empowered spammers to generate bogus Twitter accounts and spread spam across Twitter (Dancho, et. al 2009). A valid e-mail account is required to open an account on the Twitter website (http://twitter.com). The current method for this is to use an e-mail account that is only for spam or an e-mail account that expires after a short time.

“An US Army report, based on open source intelligence, warns of terrorist tweets. Twitter is already used by some members to post and/or support extremist ideologies and perspectives” (Washington AFP, 2008). Individuals should use the same caution as they do with Internet when using Twitter. A user has to look at the content of the Tweet to determine if any US laws are being violated before you communicate with the person. Organizations that want to adopt this new form of communication should have a best use of Twitter policy in effect.

Another disadvantage is that the information in Twitter might be inaccurate since the author of the content is people. Some people want to give false information for their own fame which can spread very quickly.

Examples of the use of Twitter in everyday life:

            Even though they’re numerous disadvantages to Twitter, people that are using Twitter are increasing on a daily basis. There are numerous examples of the use of Twitter in our everyday life ranging from a natural disaster event to normal socializing to business purposes. 

            During the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, an estimated 80 messages were sent to Twitter.com via SMS every five seconds depicting the terrorism. Many Twitter users sent pleas for blood donors. Tweeters were mobilized to help with the list of the dead from hospitals (Busan, 2008). The use of Twitter during terrorism is a true sign of how people come together for help. The Red Cross can use Twitter to ask for blood donors around the world with little financial stress.

            A graduate student from University of Berkeley was arrested during a protest in Egypt. He used a one word tweet from his mobile phone to his friends.  The word was ‘arrested’. This open communication, which would’ve been non-existent in the past, set him free by the aid of his friends (Simon, 2008). The use of Twitter when someone is in grave danger and in a terrorist environment leads to many of its disadvantages being non-existent. Twitter opens the door for quick communication to the world.

            There is no rule stating that the Twitter user has to have an age limit. When an unborn Baby Tyler kicked with sufficient force in the womb of his mother, a device called ‘Kickbee’ would wirelessly send a signal to his Twitter account (Matyszczyk, 2009). The followers of the Twitter account are very excited to see the post because they never experience this type of communication. This type of communication has a very large audience. The only audience that would not adopt this type of communication would be the ones that don’t want to see the communication from the unborn baby.

            One of the best examples of Twitter is the use of it by our current president Barack Obama during his presidential campaign. In August 2008, Obama was the most followed person on Twitter (Condon, 2008). President Obama used twitter to state what he was doing, where he was, and what was next in his agenda in 140 characters or less. His openness to use the type of media, which is open to the public with no bias agenda, increased his followers. In fact, the news of his vice president was first introduced in this open communication before the major media outlet discovered it.

Twitter can be used for educational purpose as well.

Surgeons twittered a surgery by using social networking site Twitter to give short real time updates about the procedure. Other doctors, medical students, and curious people were following the operation via Twitter. Dr. Craig Rogers, the lead surgeon, said the impetus for his Twittering was to let people know that a tumor can be removed without taking the entire kidney (Cohen, 2009, p1).

This informal method of communication has taught many current and new doctors how to remove a tumor in a kidney without removing the kidney. This example is similar to a seminar but without the class features. It is quick, simple, and inexpensive.

Conclusion:

 

            Twitter brings a new method of communication. It has numerous security flaws, but it is becoming a widely accepted alternative form of communication. Twitter is the new phase of communication in people’s lives, but in order to continue its growth, Twitter will have to resolve its disadvantages. As time progresses, the security of Twitter will be enhanced.

The personal information that is asked on Twitter.com is optional during the opening of the account. Figure 1.1 shows an example of an account on Twitter.com.

Figure 1.1 Screenshot of a Twitter Account

 

This account is following 15 people including the New York Times and David Gregory from NBC. Five people are following this account. In Twitter, one can also have direct messages to other twitter users.  At this time, this user does not have any direct messages. There are two reasons why having tweets to a phone is bad. First, some people do not want twitter.com to have their personal cell phone number. Second, some people do not want to constantly get tweets from other people on their phone. Figure 1.2 shows how to find users in Twitter.

 

Figure 1.2 Screenshot of finding users on Twitter

           

In this figure there are four methods to find people. A person can link any contacts from any major e-mail accounts to Twitter, find people who already have Twitter accounts, you can invite people to Twitter by e-mail, or any suggested users by Twitter. Twitter is a great form of change in communication that is going to be widely accepted despite its disadvantages.

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

Busan, S. (2008, November 27) Tweeting the terror: How social media reacted to Mumbai. Retrieved on February 7, 2009, from http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/11/27/mumbai.twitter

 

Cohan, E. (2008, February 17) Surgeons send ‘tweets’ from operating room. Retrieved on February 17, 2009, from http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/02/17/twitter.surgery/index.html

 

Condon, S. (2008, August 13) Barack Obama dominates Twitter. Retrieved on February 7, 2009, from http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10016399-93.html

 

CNN. “Here Comes the Twitter Ads” (2008, October 31) Retrieved on February 12, 2009, from http://www.stoptwitterspam.com/blog/?s=Here+comes+the+Twitter+ads

 

Dancho D., Naraine R., O’Donnell A. (2009, February 4) Commerical Twitter spamming tool hits the market. Retrieved on February 7, 2009, from http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2477&tag=nl.e550

 

Fernando, I. (2008, April 8) Networking with Twitter. Retrieved on February 12, 2009, from http://www.ianfernando.com/2008/networking-with-twitter/

 

Java A., Song X., Finin T., Tseng B. (2007) “Why we twitter: understanding microblogging usage and communities”. International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, 2007, 56-65. Retrieved on February 6, 2009 from ACM Digital Library

 

Matyszczyk, C. (2009, January 27) Unborn baby uses Twitter. Retrieved on February 7, 2009, from http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10150781-71.html?tag=mncol

 

Parkhill, J. (2008, August 2) Twitter’s First Mover Advantage and Disadvantage. Retrieved on February 12, 2009, from http://blog.jparkhill.com/2008/08/02/twitters-first-mover-advantage-and-disadvantage/

 

Rogers, E. (1996) Diffusion of Innovations New York: The Free Press

 

Shankland, S. (2009, February 4) The ‘Twitter Effect’: Possibilities and limits. Retrieved on February 7, 2009, from http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10156481-2.html?tag=mncol

 

Simon, M. (2008, April 25) Student ‘Twitters’ his way out of Egyptian jail. Retrieved on February 7, 2009, from http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/04/25/twitter.buck/index.html

 

Spencer, L. (2008, May 3) Twitter and Business: The Conclusion. Retrieved on February 12, 2009, from http://www.businessandblogging.com/twitter-and-business-the-conclusion/

 

Topper, H. (2009, January 16) Do You Tweet? Long Island Business News, 56(3), 16A

 

Twitter (2009, February 6) “Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia”. Retrieved on February 6, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Twitter&oldid=268998071

 

Washington (AFP) (2008, October 24) Terrorist ‘tweets’? US Army wants of Twitter dangers. Retrieved on February 7, 2009, from http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Terrorist_tweets_US_Army_warns_of_Twitter_dangers_999.html