Attention Indiana Wesleyan University Students

According to a Sojourn-conducted survey, you’re not in on one of this decade’s defining communication phenomena: Twitter.

“I don’t see a need for [Twitter],” said Chelsea Shannon (so). “It just seems really boring.”

Chuck Zimmerman (jr) said, “It’s kind of a useless networking tool.”

Like Shannon and Zimmerman, 300 students were asked at random if they use Twitter and more than 75 percent said no. Of those who said yes, most added that they don’t really know how or why they use the website.

“[I have Twitter], but I’ve only updated it three times since June,” said Hannah Brunner (sr). “I tried to get it, but I don’t.”

Meanwhile, the rest of the world can’t tweet fast enough. In its four years of existence, Twitter has gained more than 160 million users who tweet more than 90 million times per day.

Becoming a neweeter (a new tweeter) in 3 steps:

1. Head over to www.twitter.com and click the “sign-up” button
2. Create a username
3. Tweet!

Tweeting

Twitter asks one thing, “What’s happening?”

With a question so broad, there are no rules about what tweeters, or users of Twitter, share with the virtual world.

“I tweet funny quotes. I tweet my mood. I’ll tweet pretty much anything,” said Alli Krupp (so).

On one end of the spectrum, the Twitterati, celebrity and A-list tweeters like Kanye West, are notorious for tweeting their every move. On the other end, businesses and public relations agencies use Twitter to market, advertise and study their target audiences. (Looking for a job? twittermyjob.com connects employers to perspective employees via their Twitter accounts.)

For those of us who aren’t famous, Valdosta State University professor Pat Miller suggests that tweeters use Twitter to “entertain, engage and inform.” Miller also recommends using the 80-20 rule; 80 percent of tweets should add value to the Twitter community, while the remaining 20 percent can be self-promoting.

Trending

Twitter’s tagline is “the best way to discover what’s new in your world.”

On the website’s home page, this tagline is followed by a series of scrolling words. These words are called trending topics. “Twitter is about what is happening right now … trending topics, which capture the hottest emerging trends and topics of discussion on Twitter are the most interesting,” according to Twitter.

Trending topics are key words or key ideas marked by a pound sign, or what Twitter calls a hashtag (example: #iwuppriate). Hashtags group key ideas and topics together. Tweeters can use the search option to find others tweeting about the same trends.

Following

Following is how tweeters connect and receive others’ tweets. As soon as tweets are posted, followers are notified and can even receive updates via text message.

“I like Twitter because I can follow my brother’s soccer team and I can get score updates,” said Levi McClish (jr).

So what’s the big deal

USA Today recently called Twitter an “accurate barometer of mass culture.” It’s so accurate that The Library of Congress began archiving every tweet in existence so that scientists, historians and archaeologists can study the people of the 2000s.

In the world of technology, Twitter is called “micro-blogging.”

“It’s a new way to communicate,” said Twitter’s creator, Jack Dorsey, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. “It’s a new way to interact with people.”

Dorsey likened Twitter to live updates about what is going on in the moment or about a certain topic, whether it’s about what’s for lunch or current elections.

“Twitter captures everything,” said National Public Radio’s Andy Carvin. “You’re going to get a sampling of what life was like at its most mundane and banal and at its most tense and exciting and disturbing because it really is just a reflection of what’s going on at any given moment.”

NPR also reported that Indiana University professor Jon Bollen has found that Twitter can predict with 90 percent accuracy whether the stock market will go up or down.

The implications of knowing what is important and exactly what is going on in the lives of such a large audience are huge and people are starting to notice.

IWU Hashtags

• #iwu
• #iwubaldwin
• #iwuchapel
• #iwuclasses
• #iwububble
• #iwuppriate
• #awkwardiwucouples