Social Networking Series: Twitter

I know we all know what Twitter is. Using it, however, is a different story.

Much along the lines of leaving short status updates on Facebook or texting a friend about something that happened during the day, Twitter allows its users to connect in a variety of ways. You can connect via trending topics (denoted by a hash mark, #), sending messages to specific users (using the @ symbol followed by their twitter user name), retweet others' tweets (usually contains RT somewhere in the post), or simply by writing a tweet to put your thoughts out there.

Sharing information is the real bonus of Twitter. You can send a short message, even just a title, and then include a photo or a link to a webpage of interest. Many organizations have taken advantage of this platform to get customer feedback on events and products all over the world. A great example of this can be seen by looking into the political arena. Many news agencies and campaign forums use Twitter to gauge feedback on their candidates and policies. President Obama's staff has used Twitter very effectively by tweeting quotes from his speeches. This allows users to re-port their favorites quotes or respond to certain parts of his speech. Politics is all about creating a forum for speech. I think he's done a great job of this so far.

So, enough about the why's and what's... You want to see what it looks like and how I feel about it, right??? Well, here you go.

First off: THIS IS A GREAT APP! I wouldn't just say that about any app, rest assured. Twitter has a simple website and there is nothing complicated about posting or reading messages. They have translated their website into their app entirely. You open up the app and sign in (you can create your account from here, as well). After that, you see your user name at the top followed by a scrolling list of tweets you subscribe to.

You can select any tweet to read it entirely, retweet, reply, mark as a favorite, e-mail, copy or translate it. Going one step further you can browse their profile to find where they are, see their webpage, and who follows them/they follow. This is where you can directly message a user or post a public reply by clicking the arrow in the top right hand corner of the screen.

What happens when someone messages or replies to you? No problem! You can just click back to the main screen and select the @ symbol on the bottom of the screen. Here, you can see any posts that were made that mention you. You can also reply back! Talk about easy... Messages sent to you can be seen by selecting the icon with an envelope.

The next icon is used to search. You can search by trending topics and by users. From there, it's pretty easy to do everything mentioned above, as well.

On top of all the great features of the app, I have NEVER ONCE had the app crash or freeze. That's a grand slam in app developing. Here's hoping they keep it that way.

You can view your own profile by selecting the icon with three dots. Very easy. Like I said, Twitter made an app that is a walk in the park. Tweeting about your flavorless bubblegum is only a few taps away... literally.