Abstract: Social network sites (SNSs) are increasingly attracting the attention of academic and industry researchers intrigued by their affordances and reach. This special theme section of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication brings together scholarship on these emergent phenomena. In this introductory article, we describe features of SNSs and propose a comprehensive definition. We then present one perspective on the history of such sites, discussing key changes and developments. After briefly summarizing existing scholarship concerning SNSs, we discuss the articles in this special section and conclude with considerations for future research.
Evan Williams and Biz Stone of Twitter
Robyn Twomey for TIME
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The one thing you can say for certain about Twitter is that it makes a
terrible first impression. You hear about this new service that lets you send
140-character updates to your "followers," and you think, Why does the world
need this, exactly? It's not as if we were all sitting around four years ago
scratching our heads and saying, "If only there were a technology that would
allow me to send a message to my 50 friends, alerting them in real time about my
choice of breakfast cereal."
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I, too, was skeptical at first. I had met Evan Williams, Twitter's
co-creator, a couple of times in the dotcom '90s when he was launching
Blogger.com. Back then, what people worried about was the threat that blogging
posed to our attention span, with telegraphic, two-paragraph blog posts
replacing long-format articles and books. With Twitter, Williams w
"Injecting Twitter into that conversation fundamentally changed the rules of engagement. It added a second layer of discussion and brought a wider audience into what would have been a private exchange. And it gave the event an afterlife on the Web. Yes, it was built entirely out of 140-character messages, but the sum total of those tweets added up to something truly substantive, like a suspension bridge made of pebbles."
At Wieden+Kennedy we are dreaming of a white Christmas. So in the window of our offices we've built a model of our street, and every time you or someone around the world mentions snow on Twitter, a special tweet snowflake will fall over our neighbourhood. So get tweeting and let it snow
If Senators John McCain and Barack Obama actually do debate Friday night, you will be able to watch what thousands of viewers think of their verbal sparring almost as they talk. Twitter, the service that lets techno-hipsters broadcast their thoughts in 140-character bursts, is setting up a special politics page to make it easy to tune into the chatter.
Avartize.com gives you, the Twitter user, the option to easily pimp your profile picture, also known as your avatar. Set your state to "busy," tell your friends you're on fire - or let everybody know you are out taking in that special event.