Hoyin Tong, sophomore architecture major, needs a stronger alarm clock – preferably one that dropkicks her awake…David Lewis is researching an Arts & Sciences elective and found that SU offers graduate courses in pottery…Cat Chung, senior public relations major, knows she’s tired when her under-eyes begin to pulsate like rapid fire.

Welcome to the world of Twitter.

Founded in 2006 by Jack Dorsey and Biz Stone as one of the latest offerings in a long line of Silicon Valley ventures, Twitter is a social networking tool comparable to Facebook and AOL Instant Messaging. Much like Facebook’s status updates, those who ‘tweet’ answer the customary question ‘what are you doing?’ in a text box of 140 characters or less via Web or text messaging.

The seemingly simple interface belies an intricate network of over six million accounts from users all over the world. The interface has prompted some to refer to Twitter as a new form of micro-blogging.

‘You can say, ‘I’m going to take a shower,’ or (Twitter) could be more useful and update people about an emergency,’ said Jeffrey Rubin, a professor in the School of Information Studies at SU. ‘I think where the power of Twitter fully comes in is more from a business or educational standpoint. There really are a lot of uses with it in those areas.’

Rubin, an avid iPhone enthusiast, receives product and service updates for his gadget from others on Twitter by searching for certain terms on the Web site. He also said that Twitter can effectively break news before the mainstream media does, citing the 5.4-magnitude earthquake that occurred in California last July. Twitter users were also the first to notify the public about the US Airways Flight 1549 ditch landing in the Hudson River last January.

‘The first time the Associated Press reported on the (California) earthquake, it was about eight minutes after it had happened,’ Rubin said. ‘But within those eight minutes, thousands of ‘tweets’ went out, so the word had already spread around the country, and the world for that matter. Those who used Twitter-like applications knew about it faster than those who relied on traditional media.’

Twitter has also become popular with prominent figures in politics, media, entertainment and the arts. Actor and TV/movie producer Ashton Kutcher updates his account about 20 times a day with replies to friends or links to articles and other sites he’s involved in. Kutcher has recently undertaken the challenge to be the first on Twitter to reach one million followers.

Tong doesn’t have an interest in Kutcher’s mini-posts, but used to follow musician John Mayer closely, until his excessive tweeting got out of hand.

‘(Mayer) twitters like 50 times a day. It was intense,’ Tong said, who’s been using Twitter for a little over a year. ‘I get some updates sent to my phone via text and I had to stop following him because it got so annoying.’

These frequent updates are what keep celebrities at the front of a fan base consciousness, however, and it seems to be the trendy way to gain a more personal connection with famous figures.

Jon Glass, general manager of the Collaborative Media Room in Newhouse 3, said that the number of followers a Twitter celebrity has correlates to the sincerity of his effort.

‘If he or she was just there saying ‘Go look at my movie, go look at my movie, go do this all the time,’ people would start ignoring them, but celebrities who seem to let others peek into their personal lives or what they’re working on will gain a quicker following,’ Glass said. ‘That’s why Shaq is so popular online. He says very quirky, amusing things.’

‘I wanna b a underwear model. I will b n 3 months trust me I will b the finest 37 year older n da world’ is just one example of the basketball star’s daily comical musings.

David Lewis, a sophomore public relations major, first heard of Twitter through his public relations courses. He began following the presidential candidates on the application during election season, but originally found little use for it otherwise.

‘I think the basic concept is geared more toward a middle-aged corporate crowd,’ Lewis said. ‘When I attended the Public Relations Student Society of America conference, a lot of the PR professionals handed out business cards to students that included their Twitter accounts.’

Now, reflecting Twitter’s recent surge in popularity, Lewis updates his status at least once a day and follows various experts in his field of interest. Though he still doubts Twitter’s ability to win over the younger generation, he acknowledges that Facebook’s revamped real-time homepage is glaringly similar to Twitter’s format.

‘We’re getting into the whole thing of micro-blogging and posting immediate replies, and keeping up to date with what our friends are saying so there’s definitely some competition there,’ Lewis said. ‘Younger people want to find out more about you than just updates though. They want to check out photos and where you’re going. I think because of Facebook Mobile, Smartphones and BlackBerrys, I can almost see Twitter getting phased out.’

Rubin agreed that Twitter’s scope would most likely never overpower that of Facebook, but pointed out that the purpose of one is entirely different from the other. Whereas Facebook is more of a private forum for people the user knows and are most likely friends with, Twitter is an open application where no permission is required to follow someone unless he or she is on complete lockdown, Rubin said.

‘Facebook or MySpace is more for your traditional friends, while with Twitter it’s more of your interests,’ Rubin said. ‘You may not be friends with someone but you can have a common interest that you can find by using the search engine.’

Cat Chung, a senior, uses this tool to locate professionals for networking opportunities in the public relations or beauty areas. Because of this, she ‘doesn’t tweet about super personal things,’ Chung said. She treats her Twitter as an extension of her résumé and professional profile, and only tweets about things she wouldn’t mind sharing with the world.

‘You have to be cautious about what you put out there, but maybe leverage it to connect with people, land jobs or network in a new way that you might not have been able to before,’ Glass said.

In a digital age where anyone connected to some sort of media is inundated with hordes of information, Twitter may seem like just another needle in the technology haystack. It seems rather emblematic, however, of users’ increasingly more open Web identities and willingness to expand their nets – and perhaps their comfort zones – to an atypical source of knowledge: each other.

‘It’s definitely self-indulgence, it’s like having an audience. People like to be trendy,’ Hoyin Tong said.

Though Tong admits she finds it a little weird when she starts getting random followers, she enjoys having an audience and likes being part of someone else’s.

‘People don’t quite grasp it yet so until you find a value as an end user, you’re probably not going to use Twitter to post anything,’ Rubin said. ‘It’s one more place to look for information and it’s just an alternative mechanism to stuff that’s already there but it’s this worldwide community. It opens up all these possibilities.’

Shlee10@syr.edu

Published on April 13, 2009 at 12:00 pm