Twitter describes itself as, “a service for friends, family, and co-workers to communicate and stay associated through the transaction of quick, repeated responses to one simple thought: What are you doing?”

If you’re new Twitter, then that description might seem to be a bit vague and ambiguous. So, to help you wrap your mind all around the short-form messaging tool, start thinking about about Twitter as a new form of online interaction. Twitter is just communication in a new shape, but it’s also a platform for playing to the interaction of others in new ways.

Currently we have email, instant messenger, and VoIP tools like Skype as one-to-one or one-to-few online communication tools. For one-to-many online communication, online publishers can turn to blogs to create and distribute content rapidly and reach anyone on the web through RSS feeds.

Twitter is a formula of these various forms of communication, but its primary difference is that posts, or tweets, are restricted to 140 characters or less. As a Twitter user you can post updates, follow and view updates from other users (this is akin to subscribing to a blog’s RSS feed), in addition to post a public reply or maybe private direct message to connect with another Twitterer.

Though users can answer the prompt, “What are you doing?”, tweets have evolved to more than everyday experiences, in addition to take the condition of shared links to useful content with the website, conversations approximately hot topics (using hashtags), photos, video lessons, music, and, most essentially, real-time accounts from people who are in the midst of a newsworthy event, crisis, or natural disaster.