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Twitter Is A Word

This is not turning into a debate about whether I can use tweet in Scrabble.  The New York Times editors do not think it belongs in standard english just yet.  The newspaper editors cautions its reporters and writers against using it too much.  Apparently, their average reader are complaining about using the word in reporting.

Tweet is a word which commonly refers to a message sent out using the Twitter service.    Users of the service are limited by a 140 character cap on each message.  All messages are public, and users can subscribe or follow other users.  When two users follow each other they can send private messages to each other, the only time a message is private.

With a growing army of twitter users around the globe, twitter has changed how we gather news.  You want to have confirmation of the earthquake in China, just type a search string to access the public stream of messages.  This is its real power-search.

Imagine you have a product and you want to know what your market is saying about it.  Go to twitter.  Say you are interested in the latest results in the World Cup in South Africa.  Before the regular news media comes out with their polished report, twitter users with barely standard english have informed you which team won.

Twitter just made all of us content creators.  Be the witness to something mundane or something historical, who knows.

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