SocialMediaBasedAssignmentTWITTER

SOCIAL MEDIA BASED ASSIGNMENT Twitter

Social Media ACC3004 Aaron Kiegaldie Liam OBrien

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SocialMediaBasedAssignmentTWITTER 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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SocialMediaBasedAssignmentTWITTER 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.

AaronKiegaldieLiamOBrien

SocialMediaBasedAssignmentTWITTER

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 follow within the social media site. AaronKiegaldieLiamOBrien 4

SocialMediaBasedAssignmentTWITTER 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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SocialMediaBasedAssignmentTWITTER 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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SocialMediaBasedAssignmentTWITTER 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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SocialMediaBasedAssignmentTWITTER 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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SocialMediaBasedAssignmentTWITTER References: Dork, M., Gruen, D., Williamson, C. and Carpendale, S. (2010), A Visual backchannel for Large-Scale Events, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer 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 th micro blogging usage and communities. in Proceedings of the 9 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.

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