Twitter seven years ago went on the air as the Internet messaging service , he was ridiculed by critics as an instrument of narcissistic navel-gazing. But Twitter quickly emancipated and became the leading service that millions of people their thoughts to 140 characters tirilierten compressed in the world - the English word Twitter means singing.  And more and more companies are discovering the enormous reach of Twitter for marketing purposes.

IPO is eagerly awaited

Now Twitter dares to go public. Since then, in May last year, the online social network Facebook went onto the dance floor, an IPO is hardly been expected with such a power as that of Twitter.Until now, the service with the blue bird as a logo, especially as super-fast messages transmitter, with which people may have intervened here and there in the course of history. Now the service is to demonstrate that he can make money, and this needs to be expanded into a giant advertising.

For communication scientist Paul Levinson of Fordham University in New York is clear: "Twitter is the epitome of the Revolution through social networks - even more than Facebook or YouTube." Levinson presented with "New New Media" is a standard work on the subject and says : "Twitter is aligned to the simultaneity of the message and the identity of the user." They could so easily as never before come into contact with celebrities, and many of them were this contact. "This differentiates the communication in the 21st So radically from the past century. The combination of speed and access to all the world is new, "says Levinson.

Six times smaller than Facebook

This Twitter is not so big. Worldwide, 200 million people use the service active. In the U.S., indicate only 15 percent of the population to have ever used Twitter. At the time of the IPO of Facebook, however already 56 percent of Americans had at least one Facebook page, and 17 percent said they use Facebook daily.There are currently around 1.2 billion Facebook users, six times as many as Twitter users worldwide.

The limitation of 140 characters per message is the same advantages and disadvantages of Twitter . While employs a clearly defined community of friends in Facebook users, most Twitter users blow their concise thoughts out into the world. It truly is not everything worth reading, because many tweets revolve around such earth-shaking issues as the quality of canteen food, the weather or the new songs and movies in Bollywood

Organize protests through Twitter

The most important characteristic of Twitter is its enormous speed , Twitter played an important role in the transmission of messages from the frontlines of the Arab Spring, triggering a communications academic debate about the limits of journalism. Even in Iran, Twitter was used to organize protests.

But that Twitter has also doubtful to destructive qualities, show two examples: In the re-election of the Federal President Horst Köhler in 2009, the result was "Koehler elected on the second ballot" by the tweet of deputies involved in the counting of already known in advance. And two years ago the former U.S. Congressman Anthony Weiner accidentally sent a link to an Internet sex site to its 56,000 followers. The political career of the Democrats was initially completed.