Help a twidiot

[slipperyslope]

Yeah, so..
this twitter thing... it's been around for years, and I never understood it's sudden explosion in popularity, nor did I understand my need to get involved. However, I missed out on a few cool giveaways and stuff just because for the first time ever, there was something on the internet that I couldn't figure out in 10 seconds how to use.

They kept using all this coded language (seemingly, for a new initiate), plus all that hashmark stuff and @ symbols and stuff.

Any kind soles want to give a quick run down of typical functions and usage or do I need to actually read the site?

[Steeley Chris]

# denotes a trending topic. You'll see it highlighted in someone's tweet. If you click it, you see other tweets by other people who hashmarked.
@ denotes a Twitter user. If you put that before someone user name (ex. @tedleo) it will link to their tweets. If you are replying to someone's tweet, this will happen automatically.
RT means "retweet".

A rambling list of FOT on Twitter:
http://www.friendsoftom.com/forum/index.php/topic,4907.0.html

[cutout]

(Also use an app like Tweetie, rather than the website, and Twitter conversations will make a lot more sense. My dad used Twitter via the browser for a year and never got the hang of it)

[erika]

I can't get into it. I guess I like to interact more online and somehow Twitter doesn't work for me in that way. It might just be that most of the people I talk to online don't use it, or I like more conversational sites like message boards or Facebook.

I like reading what other people tweet, but overall it's overwhelming for me. So many people to follow! I know that sounds so silly for someone who is 100% addicted to the internet and has used social networking sites forever... but I'm just no good at Twitter. That said, it's a pretty easy site to use.

[Gilly]

I never use it individually, but I do use it for a PAC I work for and it's been awesome for that.

[slipperyslope]

I can't get into it. I guess I like to interact more online and somehow Twitter doesn't work for me in that way. It might just be that most of the people I talk to online don't use it, or I like more conversational sites like message boards or Facebook.

I like reading what other people tweet, but overall it's overwhelming for me. So many people to follow! I know that sounds so silly for someone who is 100% addicted to the internet and has used social networking sites forever... but I'm just no good at Twitter. That said, it's a pretty easy site to use.

I hear you. I guess if I got my band touring again or something, it might be a good way to approach casual fan communiciation type stuff.
But I don't understand it all otherwise. Hell, apart from certain circumstances, I don't really understand the facebook thing either. Do you REALLY need to tell me what time you're going to the bar on a public "wall" ? Can't you just email me?




But for the others - thank you, I think it was the RT thing that was confusing me the most in the past.

[Paul DePhiladelphia]

# denotes a trending topic. You'll see it highlighted in someone's tweet. If you click it, you see other tweets by other people who hashmarked.
@ denotes a Twitter user. If you put that before someone user name (ex. @tedleo) it will link to their tweets. If you are replying to someone's tweet, this will happen automatically.
RT means "retweet".

A rambling list of FOT on Twitter:
http://www.friendsoftom.com/forum/index.php/topic,4907.0.html

I am a twidiot as well. Do you manually type in these commands? Also I feel like if I don't know these people I shouldn't be bothering them? Is there a way to get past this? There are a lot of things about twitter I don't understand.