Last Updated on April 20, 2020

I think I first heard about Twitter one year ago. Since then, I’ve tried, and tried, and tried to take a look inside, with no success. The only message I got was that “Firefox can’t find the server”.

But almost every other blogger writes about Twitter, praises Twitter, writes Twitter guides, or enjoys Twitter guides, so I told to myself “keep trying”.

Today was the big day: I typed in http://twitter.com and surprise! Twitter was there for me.

I created my account, then let Twitter import my list of contacts from Yahoo mail (although I was not very happy that I had to input my Yahoo password in there), then I saw the list of friends from the Yahoo inbox, with some notes for each of them (probably the famous “tweets”).

“The rest is silence.” (Hamlet, Prince of Denmark)

Nothing looks familiar, it seems like this Twitter doesn’t have any beginning, nor any end. But wait! In the right-bottom corner, there’s something I’ve seen before. A search box. I type in the first word that comes into my mind, namely “internet”. I got a results page which looked pretty much like the initial list of my friends and their twitterings, only that now those guys were unknown to me:

  • The first two of them had the location: internet, which explains why they were on the list. Now I know that one of them had some pinot noir, humus and herbs salami at 3 a.m. and that he needs a hobby. I didn’t understand what the other one had, as he wrote in an unknown language.
  • The third one was from Seattle, and 6 months ago he said “Hello Twitter”. Hello Seattle! Twitter here!
  • Then there was a long line of people who either had nothing to say except “huh” and “hello”, or had their sayings set on private. Lesson 1: if you don’t want everybody see your “huhs” and “hellos”, you can make them private, and I suppose they will become available only for your friends.
  • By the end of the list, I started to notice that one can input a link to a desired website (somewhere in the profile), and that will be displayed on every tweet. Lesson 2: Twittering a lot can make your website hot!

Now, that I’m done with the word “internet”, I go back and type in “marketing”. Again, people doing things, promoting links, bored and beautiful online… for about 87 pages.

“Come on, let’s tweet again!” (a popular song, with a little twist)

By this time, I’m determined to actually DO something, so I return to the home page. I see now that the first message on the list is from Vivien, who’s glad somebody is following her, and that somebody is me! I had no idea that I’ll be following people in my address book. I’m glad Vivien wrote that, and I want to answer her. But there is no answer button. Looking for the damn button, I finally find the big box at the top of the screen, where I am invited to say what I’m doing now.

I say, I press Update, and I discover too late that I have a typo which will tweet around in the ether forever, as there’s no way to fix it.

I’m definitely lost. As if this is not enough, I learn that

Twitter is more fun when used through your mobile phone or instant messenger client. Set yours up!

I think I’m having too much fun already. I’m not giving you my mobile phone number, so you can charge me long distance calls. There’s an ocean and several countries between us, dear Twitter!

As far as the instant messenger is concerned, why not use directly that to keep my friends posted with my lunch, dinner, cat washing, or whatever else?

But wait! I was about to end my article, when I noticed a link called Public Timeline. This is great! Now I feel like a true voyeur, peeping through a keyhole. Here’s the place where the whole twitting planet can find out in 4 minute chunks of real time that you are bored, or you prepare to go to work, or you’ve forgotten the dog outside and now he’s all frozen. Beware, there’s also a RSS feed available for addicted voyeurs.

As I’m typing, I realize that I’ve just invented a joke:

How do you recognize someone who doesn’t use Twitter?

He’s the only one who still asks people “How are you?”

🙂

Do you like to watch? Then follow me on http://twitter.com/scorpion68a

Don’t you like to watch? Follow me on http://twitter.com/scorpion68a, and you will!

I’m going to surprise you every day.

This is my contribution to the Social Media Mega Project – Twitter. If you want, you can participate too. This is the biggest Social Media project ever. Don’t waste the chance to have your say, even if you don’t always understand social media.

Don’t be decent, just be present!