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I’m finding that more and more I’m getting asked something like “What the heck is Twitter and how do you use it?” The last time I was asked I took the time to write up a long email, but before I sent it my brain kicked to life and thought that a blog post would be much more reusable. Thus….

Twitter is sort of like micro-blogging. You get 140 characters to post something, and that’s it. People have found that the 140-character limit is more liberating than it is limiting because it cuts everything down to the chase. That limit is really the key reason I believe Twitter has succeeded.

Set up a Twitter account at http://www.twitter.com. Your account name is usually expressed with an @ followed by your user name: @scrooks. Pick a few people you know to follow. Some of them likely will follow you back. Start sending out posts, called “tweets”. Read your friends’ tweets. Your social network unfolds.

Twitter is not text messaging where you send something and expect a quick reply. If you don’t direct a tweet to someone specifically, you’re just throwing it out there for those who are interested (mini-blogging). Conversely, if you for some reason can’t keep up with your Twitter stream for a bit, it’s not really necessary to slog through the backlog. Throw it out and continue from the present. Twitter is ephemeral. (Things directed specifically to you will show up differently so you don’t have to worry about losing them in a purge.)

At first you’ll wonder what you should tweet. Read your friends’ tweets for a while and you’ll get a sense of things. Then you’ll start sending out replies to some of your friends’ tweets. Then suddenly you’ll start having moments when you’ll think, “That’s interesting/funny/scary/unusual, I should tweet about that.” From what I’ve seen, kids tend to tweet more like their text messages: “Eating cereal, watching TV”. Adults tend to tweet only when there’s something more interesting: “Eating cereal and got a decoder ring inside: GSVJU MPPQT TVDL!”

Someone you’re following sending out too many boring tweets and cluttering your stream? Unfollow them. The world of Twitter is really rather impersonal and you may find yourself following and unfollowing Twitter accounts frequently.

Twitter is (usually) open. Want to know who else you might want to follow? Look at who your friends are following and who those people are following. Check out their past tweets. Look interesting? Follow! Watch when your friends resend a tweet they received (known as retweeting). If you like it, follow the original sender.

Your standard tweet is put out there for all your followers to read. But you can also direct a tweet to a specific person by including their Twitter name with an @, like “@scrooks Calvin just won the 400m dash!”. Your other friends typically won’t see that tweet unless they also follow scrooks. There’s also a setting so you can see all @-replies sent by your friends, which can be a good way to learn about other people you might want to follow.

You can also send direct (private) messages that only the recipient can see by using the letter “d” followed by their username, like “d scrooks Calvin’s teacher says he’s not turning in homework, we need to talk”.

But there’s more than that.

Twitter is designed to be hooked into your mobile phone’s text messaging (but many people do use Twitter just fine without using their phone). 140 characters fits nicely in a standard text message. You can send tweets from your phone using text messaging if you see something interesting. “At a movie and the lady next to me just laughed so hard she spilled her popcorn all over her date.” You can set up any of your friends so that when they tweet it gets sent to your phone. This makes it a useful real-time, non-direct conversation. “Anyone want to grab a beer right now?”

If you have an iPhone or a Blackberry or a Windows Mobile phone you can choose from a wide range of Twitter clients to do your tweeting. These clients will make it easy to do just about anything, including posting pictures. (I’m a fan of Twittelator Pro for iPhone/Touch.)

Unless you make it so your tweets are private and people need your permission to follow you (not really recommended or part of the Twitter gestalt), anyone can see your tweets. They’ll also show up in searches. Some people use Twitter clients that let them continually follow particular search terms (like “cerner”). This becomes extraordinarily useful for two reasons.

One, there are many ways to see Twitter trends, which can tell you what words are most used in all tweets recently. Words like “earthquake” or “attack” or “apple”. Twitter has become the king of breaking news. If you want to know when something happens, watch the Twitter trends.

Two, there’s a lot of social content on Twitter that can be searched against. Want to see a discussion about your favorite TV show? Go to http://search.twitter.com or use your favorite Twitter client and search for the name of the show for a lot of commentary. Want to see what anyone’s ever said about a restaurant you’re thinking of going to? Search. Very powerful.

Twitter is becoming overwhelmingly popular. If your friends don’t have Twitter accounts, they probably soon will. Celebrities are getting them, and some are actually interesting to follow. The big names in whatever field you work in probably have Twitter accounts, and following them can be illuminating. There’s a good chance your government officials are tweeting. Places like the CDC are using Twitter accounts for announcements, such as emergencies and, recently, a daily swine flu update. All the news and sports shows seem to be flocking to Twitter for real-time feedback during their broadcasts. My web hosting company, Dreamhost, has set up a Twitter account for service updates. Many services, such as package tracking, have sprung up around Twitter.

A recent discussion I heard made the point that it looks like Twitter owns what is becoming an important namespace on the web. It’s becoming more and more common for people to ask for and give out their Twitter name. It’s often easier to direct message someone at their Twitter name (knowing it’ll show up as a text message on their phone as well as wherever else they may read their tweets) than to try to remember their phone number for sending a text message.

Twitter is really just starting to hit the big time. They’ve managed to carve out a new niche and own it. It’s not going away, it won’t be supplanted by something else anytime soon, it’s just going to explode further. “Tweet it to me” and “I’ll just tweet you” and “I saw that on Twitter” will be common phrases very soon, even with non-geeks.

I’m @scrooks. Follow me.