What are you doing? It is the simple question that the messages published on Twitter, one of the most used social networks on the internet, try to answer. The only condition is that, to count it, a maximum of 280 characters are used . For this reason, this type of communication is also known as microblogging or nanoblogging . Twitter is an English word that means ‘twitter’ or ‘ trill’ . “It chirps like the birds, they sing and the rest of the tribe listens and answers them,” explains Biz Stone, co-founder of the platform with Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams .
But what is Twitter used for? On the one hand, fortalk about everything a little, As in life itself.Jose Luis Orihuela, a professor at the University of Navarra and an expert in cyberculture, alternates messages such as “Preparing a post on Media Community Managers” with others as banal as “Lowering the fire to the paella”. On the microblogging platform we found phrases like “It was neither aquarium nor information nor milk: we live in the age of anxiety” (@lordjerome) or “Web 2.0: more people talking about doing things than doing them” (@korochi) .
In addition, certain establishments, such as theAlbion CafeIn London, they tell their customers that they have just taken their bread and cakes out of the oven. In New York, ice cream vans and other food stalls – burritos, kebabs, crepes – use Twitter to report their journey in real time. And some museums, such as the modern art museum in New York – the MoMA – and theBritish Museumfrom London, assure that the platform has changed the relationship with its public, since it allows them to report daily on what is happening inside, broadcast the assembly of their exhibitions or notify shows instantly.
Through Twitter, novels such as‘Good Captain’, by Jay Bushman, a success already published on paper. Even theWailing wall-Kotel-, the most sacred place for Judaism, uses the microblog to receive messages that are printed and placed in the small spaces that remain between the old stones, a demonstration that tradition and technology are not so at odds. Twitter helps analysts predict the evolution of the economy, as well as marketing experts to anticipate the success at the box office of a movie premiere.
Other applications are more exotic. At New York University he created a wireless gadget calledBotanicalls Kit that tweets the status of a plant to its ownerto let you know when you need water. Original is alsoKickbee, a pregnant belt with a built-in vibration sensor that posts a message to the platform every time the fetus kicks. For its part, the platformSickcity.org monitors on Twitter any message about a possible case of the fluand incorporates it into a real-time map of the world’s epidemics and pandemics.
In emergencies and revolutions
In the United States, the use of this system has become astandard practice for police and fire departmentsof all country. The former report arrests, homicides, riots, traffic accidents, roadblocks, robberies and advances in criminal investigations. As for the firefighters, they send messages to inform about their departures and receive data from citizens, who notify them, for example, ofchanges in the wind in a burning areathat can be key to prevent the fire from spreading. In view of the success of this form of communication between the security forces,el FBIhe has not wanted to be left behind. From Washington headquarters, Special Agent Jason Pack tweets daily about computer worms, runaways, and missing children, among other topics. In Spain, the @policia account has become a classic on Twitter due to its activity and the sympathy and style of those who handle it. For example, in recent summers, within the Twitter campaigns generated by @policia, the one of#summeror, a hashgtag to advise on travel, safe vacations, ATMs, online shopping …
And it is that 280 characters go a long way. For example, to organize asocial uprising or a demonstration, as happened in Egypt and Iran. Although without a doubt, the best example of recent use of Twitter is found in situations of natural disasters such as earthquakes or terrorist attacks. In 2011, the earthquake and subsequent nuclear threat of Fukushima was broadcast minute by minute on Twitter. The same happened after the terrorist attacks in Paris in 2015 or the riots in Nicaragua.
Twitter has also become the playground of the world , in which there is a free-for-all on any topic that presents minimal controversy. Many public figures such as artists and politicians use their Twitter accounts as a speaker to the world of their opinions and criticism. One of the most significant examples may be that of the President of the United States Donald Trump.
