Twitter in Plain English

So, what are you doing? It's one of the first questions we often ask friends and family.

Even if the answer is just mowing the lawn or cooking dinner, it's interesting to us. It makes us feel connected and part of each other's lives. Unfortunately, most of our day to day lives are hidden from people that care. Of course we have email and blogs and phones to keep us connected. But you wouldn't send an email to a friend to tell them you're having coffee.

Your friend doesn't need to know that. But, what about the people that want to know about the little things that happen in your life? Real life happens between blog posts and emails. And now, there's a way to share. This is Twitter in Plain English. Thanks to Twitter, it's possible to share short, bite-sized updates about your life.

And follow the updates of people that matter to you via the Web. Here's how it works. Meet Carla. She's addicted to her mobile phone, reads blogs every day, and has contacts all over the world. She heard about Twitter and was skeptical. After some of her friends couldn't stop talking about it, she gave it a try. She signed up for free and saw that Twitter pages look a little like blogs, with very short posts. Each page is personal and has updates from friends. She got started by looking up her friends on Twitter.com. After finding a few, she clicked Follow to start seeing their updates on her Twitter page. Within hours, she began to see a different side of people she chose to follow. She didn't know that Steven in Seattle was a baseball fan,

Or that Julia in London was reading a new investment book. The little messages from Twitter painted a picture of her friends, family and co-workers that she'd never seen before. It was the real world.

Soon, she became a fan of Twitter, and posted updates every day. Her friends followed her updates, and learned that she recently discovered a passion for Van Halen.

They could see Carla's life between blog posts and emails. For Carla, Twitter worked because it was simple. The updates were always short - under 140 characters. Plus, she could post updates and follow her friends

Using the Twitter website, software on her browser, a mobile phone or instant messages. By asking members to answer the question, What are you doing?

Carla found that Twitter brought her closer to people that matter to her. 140 characters at a time. Find out what your friends are doing at Twitter.com I'm Lee LeFever, and this has been Twitter in Plain English on the Common Craft Show.