Keeping up with internet trends can be trying. First MySpace, then Facebook and now this Twitter thing is all the rage. So they’re just fads that will fizzle out in time, right? Wrong.

Remember that people thought the telephone was a fad, and most doctors in the 19th century scoffed at the idea that this gadget could help them in their practice.

So what is Twitter about? It’s like a combination of a global chat room with a blogging system and personal broadcasting tool. It allows anyone to publish short updates known “tweets” in which they tell the world what they’re doing or thinking at that moment.

But what makes Twitter work is the concept of “following”. You choose which people to follow and you see only their updates. If they become boring or annoying you simply “unfollow” them.

So users only follow people that they trust or respect or at the very least find interesting. And since these people often “follow” them back, clusters of like-minded people develop.

And it’s from these clusters that the true power of Twitter comes. You will hear industry news on Twitter hours or even days before it goes public – providing you follow the right people.
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