Twitter Social Media Report

7/27/2019 Twitter Social Media Report

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SocialMediaBasedAssignmentTWITTER

AaronKiegaldieLiamOBrien 1

SOCIAL MEDIA BASED ASSIGNMENT

Twitter

Social Media ACC3004

Aaron Kiegaldie

Liam OBrien


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This social media report will focus on the relatively new form of social media,

Twitter. Only 7 years old, Twitter is now one of these most used websites in the world

and is currently home to an estimated half a billion users. This report will aim to give

an overall summary of the history and general operation of Twitter. The report will

also give insight as to how Twitter is affecting user lives and to what extent it is

helping them grow and prosper. By giving an understanding into the way Twitter

deals with identity, communication, sharing, presence, relationships, reliability and

groups, we will be able to come to a conclusion as to whether Twitter has been a

success.

The term microblogging was initially used in the early 2000s across a

number of websites, and later started to appear in academic papers (Erickson, 2007,

Java et al., 2007). Twitter is one of the major players in this micro-blogging fraternity

Twitter was launched back in 2006 under the name twttr and has just recently

celebrated its 7th birthday on the 21st of March. The social media application started as

another micro-blogging platform in San Francisco by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams

and Biz Stone. Initially twitter was conceived by the 3 guys as a way of sending free

text messages on their phones in 140 characters or less. The massive success twitter

has experienced since has come as a true surprise.

Twitter can be defined as a short burst of inconsequential information and

a series of chirps from birds. As Twitter grew the information being shared through

people would mirror that of birds chirping.

The early days were tough, with the company being tested through Odeo they

had little success, the creators decided to buyback the company from investors

Heppermann, C 2013. Twitter encourages uses to tweet information in 140 characters

or less that can be seen by their followers or via the #hashtagstheyuse. The limitation

on the amount of characters a user could use was caused by the apps initial use. 140

characters was the limit that mobile carriers imposed with SMS protocol standard.

This remained constant when twitter grew into a web platform. The amount of

personal information shared via your profile information is completely self-controlled

and can be as little as a user name. Early on twitter had no function to interact with

other users and the famous retweet button didnt exist. However as the popularity of

the app grew users were creating different ways to use the service that the founders

started to take notice of and utilize.


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The @ symbol which tags another user in a post and the hashtag symbol were

all introduced by the users before they had a functional use within the service.

This then led to the retweet function being added in 2010, which really changed how

twitter was used. Users wanted a way to engage others and repost messages from

users they followed (Heppermann, 2013).

Twitter can be used for sharing information regarding anything from what you had for

breakfast to breaking news from around the world, which allows people to rapidly

communicate information and keep up to date with almost anything.

Breaking news and events that were once so closed off from the larger community are

now open which has advantages such as increasing the audience for the message,

mobilizing people into action, and enabling those unable to attend an event to share in

the community (Dork et al., 2010).

However, Twitter also brings about some interesting social issues linked to

etiquette and potential misuse (Ross et al., 2011). The current amount of active twitter

users on the 7/5/2013 was 554,750,000 people according to the twitter source, which

is a huge jump up from the early days in 2010 when only about 8 % of adult

Americans had accounts (Weedmark, 2013).

Twitter has become a platform for all users to voice their thoughts, opinions or

even what they had for lunch, its vast growth has seen it announce that it will soon go

public. Twitters ability to break news and give everyday people a voice is why its

become the biggest player in the micro-blogging market.


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Above are just a few pictures taken of

the twitter interface, as you can see my account isnt pumping out tweets to a lot of

followers but I still have important things to say. The reason I use it is just to see

different sporting players and how they interact with people outside of football

circles. I think it gives a funny insight into their personalities. Also to be able to

interact with other people in the community whether that is a friend or avid sports

followers. I feel Twitter is a much better platform for this kind of sharing in

comparison to Facebook, which is littered with ramblings that dont interest us.

Identity

Twitter is not regarded as a social networking site where you can build and

forge identities. Users are encouraged to reveal some brief comments of interests and

hobbies etc, however it is not the same as a FaceBook or Myspace. Twitter is more

focused on the current views and opinions of users, with the main form of use being

in the way of comments surrounding current thoughts and activities. For me

personally, I see Twitter as a form of brief and condensed Facebook. Twitter in a way,

is Facebook without all the nonsense. Twitter is also seen as a far simpler way for

people to follow celebrities and sport stars. When taking this into consideration,

people can actually forge identities for themselves in terms of whom they followwithin the social media site.


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Conversations

Users of Twitter converse by either commenting in ones Twitter page or by

using the @ symbol followed by a users name or a specific group of words that is in

tune with the certain comment made. Whereas Facebook users have friends, Twitter

users have to follow users, and for me, it is less personal and conversation based

than Facebook. It is an individualistic site where people can become up to date with

what another user is thinking and doing. Having said this, it is actually still very easy

to communicate with differing users and friends on all kinds of topics. This can be

seen on the screen shot of Liam OBriens account on the following page where he

comments to Minister of Sport @KateLundy. This also identifies the ease at which is

is to communicate with well known individuals.

Sharing

Sharing of content is a major facet of Twitter.

As Twitter is mostly centered around current

news topics around the world, people are able

to share and make known their certain

opinions for the world to see. As mentioned

before, the use of the # (hashtag) key is to

notify users as to what you are talking about.

For instance, if I were to discuss the Syrian Civil War, I would say:

It is a disgrace that world media still continues to report that Assad and the Syrian

Government had anything to do with the chemical attacks in Damascus. lies

Obama, lies #syriancivilwar #standupforthepeopleofsyria

This is also illustrated in the above picture. Liam has discussed the dropping

of footballer Shane Tuck with the # (hashtags) absolute jet, and shouldnt have been

dropped.


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The users that are following me will now understand that this particular

comment is in relation to the unrest in Syria. Also, each # (hashtag) created will begin

its own page where all other posts containing that particular # hashtag will go. This is

almost a way of opening up a discussion board for particular topics where people

interested can continue to comment and debate.

Also, re-tweeting is another area of Twitter, which is centered on the sharing

of information. By clicking the re-tweet button, that particular tweet by a certain user

is then re-tweeted and re-published on your particular Twitter account. This is just

another example of accelerating the sharing and spread of news. As seen in the picture

above, Liam has re-tweeted tweets from the Fremantle Dockers Football Club and

also journalist Mark Robinson. As stated, the sharing of views and content is very

simple on Twitter.

Presence

The ease at which you can view the presence of other users is perhaps the

fundamental idea behind Twitter. It is a social media site where you can easily and

instantly view what your friends are doing and

thinking all the way to what the President of the

United States and America is thinking. Once you

follow someone, you are able to see and know what

that person is Tweeting and what that person is

doing. As is visible in the adjacent picture Liam,

follows basketball Joe Ingles. As you can see, Joe

Ingles has almost 60,000 followers and has tweeted

of 10,000 times. His latest tweet surrounding a

UEFA Champions League football match shows just

how easy it is to follow the presence of people on

Twitter, let alone champion sports stars.


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Reputation

Reliability of users and posts is something Twitter has placed in high regard

throughout their short existence. It is extremely hard to be unreliable on twitter in

terms of falsifying who you are. For instance, someone cannot just make a new user

page pretending to be someone well known or famous, as these types of pages need

the blue tick of reliability. As you can see from the picture above of Joe Ingles

account. Next to Joes name there is a blue tick. This blue tick is a sign of reliability

and is a tick of approval saying that this in fact is the real Joe Ingles. Any well-known

user with many followers without this particular blue tick means that the user might

not be fully 100% reliable.

As for posts by everyday regular users, just like all facets of life, users must

not take every statement as true or fact. Each comment that you face every single day

in all areas of life must be taking with some caution and guard. People that take all

statements as fact are not living to their full potential. Twitter like all social media

sites is a public forum that must be treated with caution.

Relationships

While obviously still fostering the relationships between friends and family,

Twitter does not have the same warm and fuzzy effect of Facebook. Twitter is far

more centered on fostering anonymous relationships as users can have constant

debates and arguments surrounding current world topics, a lot easier that what you

can perform with users of Facebook. As already stated the ease at which users can

follow well-known and famous people is another point in favor of the fostering of

anonymous relationships.

However, these relationships are not ones that users can build on. When you

befriend someone on Facebook, it is far easier to continue the building of a proper

relationship, where as on Twitter, it is far less intimate and is more computerized and

formal. Personally, I believe that creators of Twitter did not want their social site

being focused around building friendships and relationships. It is purely a news

centered website where users can have constant awareness on what others are

thinking and doing.


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Groups

As previously stated, Twitter is a fairly individualistic social media site.

Personally, I use Facebook quite a lot more than Twitter, due to the fact I am apart of

many sporting group pages (Liverpool and Hawthorn) in order to attain the latest

news to do with the two Football Clubs. Twitter however is not the same. Twitter

focuses on the individual users thoughts which are then lodged into pages in terms of

the # (hashtags) relating to those certain comments.

For instance, if I were hoping to attain some news regarding transfer

speculations relating to the Liverpool Football Club, I would log onto Facebook and

check the groups I follow in order to get my news. However, on Twitter, I would

simply need to follow particular journalists or news bearers that are constantly

tweeting rumors and speculation in order to get my news. Both social media pages are

doing the same thing however Facebook is centered around groups whereas Twitter is

far more individualistic.

However, in saying this, the fact that Twitter, groups up # (hashtags) to form

discussion boards, it can be argued that Twitter does in fact allow for the growth of

groups and subgroups.

In summary, we believe Twitter has done a brilliant job so far throughout its

short existence. When reading over the aims and goals of the creators during the

initial stages of development, it is clear to see that they have not been deterred from

these aims, as all of them are still visible within the structure and workings of the site

today. Twitter is a fantastic source of news and current views from people all around

the world. News and information has never been able to transfer across the globe

easier than today with the use of Twitter. It is clear to see that many other forms of

social media are far slower in terms of impact, delivery of information and personal

views. Like the creators initially stated, they want views and opinions on Twitter to

come across similar to that of many birds chirping constantly. In our opinion, they

have done exactly that.


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References:

Dork, M., Gruen, D., Williamson, C. and Carpendale, S. (2010), A Visual

backchannel for Large-Scale Events, IEEE Transactions on Visualization andComputer Graphics, Vol. 16 No. 6, pp. 1129-1138.

Erickson, I. (2008), The translucence of Twitter, in Proceedings of the Ethnographic

Praxis in Industry Conference, American Anthropological Assocation, pp. 64-78.

Java, A, Song, X., Finin, T. and Tseng, B. (2007), Why we twitter: understanding

micro blogging usage and communities. in Proceedings of the 9th WebKD and 1st

SNA-KDD 2007 workshop on web mining and social network analysis.

Ross, C., Terras, M, Warwick, C and Wlsh, A. (2011), Enabled backchannel: conference

Twitter use by digital humanists, Journal of Documentation, Vol. 67 No. 2, pp 214-237.

Twitter Social Media Report

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