Microblogging – an overview | ScienceDirect Topics

Twitter

Twitter is a microblogging service type social network. It allows us to read the short 140 character (or less) based messages as known as tweets without registration but after logging in we can both read as well as compose tweets. It is also known as SMS of the internet.

Unlike other social network sites Twitter has a user base which is very diverse in nature. Nowadays Twitter is considered as the voice or speech of a person. Tweets are considered as statements and are parts of news bulletin, etc.

The major reason why it is considered as voice of a person is because of its verified accounts. Verify account is a feature of Twitter which allows celebrities or public figures to show the world that it is the real account, though sometimes they also verify their account just to maintain control over the account that bears their name.

Like other social networking sites when we get registered in Twitter, it allows us to create a profile, though it contains very limited information like name, Twitter handle, a status message, website detail, etc.

A Twitter handle is like a username which uniquely identifies us in Twitter. When we want to communicate with each other we use this Twitter handle. Twitter handle generally start with a “@” sign and then some alphanumeric characters without space, for example, @myTwitterhandle. It allows us to send direct message to another user privately via messages or publicly via tweets. It also allows us to group a tweet or topic by using hashtag “#”. Hashtag is used as a prefix of any word or phrase such as #LOL which is generally used to group a tweet or group a topic under funny category.

A word, phrase, or topic that is tagged mostly, within a time period is said to be a trending topic. This feature allows us to know what is happening in the world. Twitter allows us to follow other users. We can tweet, or simply share someone’s tweet which is also known as retweets. It also allows us to favorite a tweet. Like other social network sites it also allows us to share images and videos (with certain restrictions). Tweets visibility is by default public but if a user wants then he/she can restricts their tweets to just their followers. Twitter is nowadays popularly used for announcement or giving verdict, statement, or replying to something online. The tweets of the verified account are taken as direct statement of that person. Corporates use this for advertising, self-promotion, and/or announcements.

Unlike the two social networks we discussed earlier Twitter does not contain much personal or professional data, yet the information it provides is helpful. We can collect information about social mentions, such as if you want to search details about infosec bug bounty, you can search in Twitter with a hashtag and you will get lots of tweets related to this where you can collect information such as which are the companies into bug bounty. What is the new bug bounty started? Who all are participating in bug bounty, etc. Unlike other social network sites Twitter has large amount of structured information based on phrases, words, or topics.