Humor, information, emotion, and all in 140 characters

Attributes of Twitter extend beyond just celebrity follower-ships and are largely untapped by the majority

of Tweeple.

Twitter has become the world's water cooler

It's a place where you can hear what millions are saying and feel, unbiased and in that moment Adam Ostrow

The best form of DistributionSocial networks are a highly effective way of spreading ideas, information and content. The reach at Twitter/Facebook and other SNS portals can be immensely far and wide and yet be very profile-centric, thus giving a high degree of success-probability to the message being transmitted. Thus SNS is a medium that can do many things incomparably faster than a lot of traditional media can.

http://arkarthick.com/2010/07/04/how-twitter-turns-journalism-on-its-head/

Things happen first

New first happens on Twitter. Case in point was the human tragedy at Haiti which was effectively broadcasted by Twitter around the world, It did not stop at that only because benefits cascaded when two way communication allowed aid, information and benefits reaching ground zero. The common denominator here was Twitter.

http://www.france24.com/en/20100113-twitter-ablaze-with-messages-support-distress-following-major-quake-haiti-social-networking-microblogging-site

Harnessing the Crowd

Google uses algorithms for its “search” of information on the web. Social Networking goes a step beyond and harnesses the capabilities of crowd, mass intelligence, power of the masses in order to find information that is new, valuable, relevant or entertaining.

http://www.seoptimise.com/blog/2010/02/twitter-crowdsourcing-how-to.html

A Formidable Aggregation tool

Forget personalized news feeds, SNS services allow to information flow in thru to the user thru different other contacts: experts, users, geeks, makers, evangelists, Innovators, scientists and more. Again its not the search, it’s the perspective that all the contacts in your friend lists bring to your mind around a topic.No news organisation could possibly aim to match, or beat, the combined power of all those worker bees collecting information and disseminating it.

http://kylelacy.com/the-4-touch-points-of-productivity-in-social-media/

Word of MouthI may have only a few thousand Twitter followers, but if my blog gets mentions by GuyKawasaki or a Mashable, my exposure increases to a few millions. In marketing speak, it drives traffic and it drives engagement. If they like what they read they'll tell others about it. If they really like it, it will, as they say, 'go viral'.

http://kylelacy.com/the-4-touch-points-of-productivity-in-social-media/

http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/3-ways-to-get-customers-talking-about-you.html

A series of conversations

Two-way communication. People Respond, agree, disagree, denounce, like, dislike, reference, link, retweet and more. Its not one way transmission, its two way communication. It's the ability to share and discuss with scores, or hundreds, or thousands of people in real time. Twitter can be fragmented. It can be the opposite of fragmentation. It's a parallel universe of common conversations.

http://circuitbomb.com/index.php/2009/10/awesome-twitter-conversation-graphs-whos-part-of-the-conversation/

Conversation as against Reporting

Talk, Listen, Engage, Entertain, Humour, Comment. Twitter isn’t about the elevated platform of transmitting only. News and views are sought @ Twitter. And the community contributes genuinely.

http://gigaom.com/2010/08/23/news-flash-social-networks-are-about-connecting-people/

Levels the playing fieldThere are no big names and small names. A recognized "name" may initially attract followers in reasonable numbers. But if they have nothing interesting to say they will talk into an empty room. The energy in Twitter gathers around people who can say things crisply and entertainingly, even though they may be "unknown." They may speak to a small audience, but if they say interesting things they may well be republished numerous times and the exponential pace of those re-transmissions can, in time, dwarf the audience of the so-called big names. Sometimes, people formerly known as readers can write snappier headlines and copy than journalists and writers can.http://www.p2p-blog.com/item-633.html

Different News Values

People quite often have an entirely different sense of what is and what isn't news. What seems obvious to journalists in terms of the choices is quite often markedly different from how others see it – both in terms of the things to cover and ignore. The power of tens of thousands of people articulating those different choices can wash back into newsrooms and affect what editors choose to cover.

http://www.breakingtweets.com/

Long versus Short attention spansTwitter is simply a, instant, highly condensed stream of consciousness… is it?

Tweetdecks that follow a particular keyword or issue or subject put the attention span of Twitterers puts newspapers to shame. They are able to ferret out and aggregate information on the issues that concern them long after the caravan of professional journalists has moved on.

http://personalweb.about.com/b/2009/02/26/are-facebook-and-twitter-shortening-your-attention-span.htm

Community Creator

Communities form themselves around particular issues, people, events, artifacts, cultures, ideas, subjects or geographies. They may be temporary communities, or long-terms ones, strong ones or weak ones: they are recognizably communities

http://mashable.com/2008/11/10/twitter-community/

P2P Authority

Instead of waiting to receive the 'expert' opinions of others – Twitter shifts the balance to P2P transmission and response. Thus advertisers are wary of recommendations, likes and dislikes. Its not what the marketers say, but what other users experience around a product that is increasingly beginning to shape purchase decisions.

http://www.p2p-blog.com/http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/http://p2p.weblogsinc.com/

Agent of Change

As the ability of people to combine around issues and to articulate them grows, so it will have increasing effect on people in authority. Companies are already learning to respect, even fear, the power of collaborative media. Increasingly, social media will challenge conventional politics and, for instance, the laws relating to expression and speech.

http://blogs.sitepoint.com/2008/10/21/twitter-as-a-tool-for-social-change/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/how_to_use_social_media_for_social_change.phpwww.twitip.com/3-ways-to-create-social-change-using-twitter/