Need for Microblogging

The Internet has revolutionized the way we share information. Blogs have provided an indispensable platform to express both personal opinions and entrepreneurial ideas unhindered by the limitations of conventional media. There are blogs on almost every subject on the Internet and most blogs allow interactive communication between the author and the readers. However, time is a very limited resource and there needs to be a way to get information across concisely without bogging the reader with too many details. There is also a need for enhanced connectivity and interactivity more than what a conventional blog post can afford. Microblogging has evolved to meet these concerns.

Twitter and Other Microblogs

Microblogs, initially called, Tumblelogs, allow sharing of short snippets of information in a quick and easy manner. The information can be a short sentence or a link to a web page or other multimedia content. The most popular microblogs include Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. Of these, Twitter has revolutionized the microblogging sphere by limiting the total number of characters that can be shared to just 140, a little short of the length of an SMS.

Twitter was founded by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone and Evan Williams in 2006. Since then, Twitter has grown exponentially to become the ‘SMS of the Internet’. This has spawned a new generation of Internet users who have managed to convey their thoughts within the limits of Twitter’s character limit by devising clever language tactics and URL shortening.

Thus, Twitter has become the de facto medium to get real time happening information from all over the world and is the most popular microblogging platform. So much so, that even celebrities and Heads of States use the platform to connect instantly with their followers.

Accessing Twitter

With millions of ‘tweets’ exchanged by the hour, Twitter has become the best source of instant breaking news of virtually any topic under the sun. The Twitter service can be accessed by registered users via the Web, Mobile Apps and even by SMS. Although Twitter is a complete enough service by itself, its popularity begets more flexibility as power users would like more functionality that helps in enhancing their productivity. There has been a spurt of third party clients over the recent years providing enhancements over the native Twitter experience for almost all OS platforms, but the popular one remains Twitter’s own client, TweetDeck.

In this tutorial, we will explore how to get the most out of Twitter using TweetDeck and learn some of the customization options it offers along with a brief look at other popular third party clients as well. Having firsthand knowledge of TweetDeck will greatly help in fully harnessing Twitter’s potential, so let’s get started!