I’ve been asked a few times by friends what Twitter actually is. It is only fair, since I harp so often about no one reading my twitter page, to actually explain a little bit of what Twitter is. There is a video here, which does a fairly good job of it, but I will also do my best to articulate what it is (Mike, Matty, Dad, feel free to weigh in with your own explanations of it).

Twitter is what is known as a microblog. I tried to find a nice definition online, but I couldn’t find one I liked (granted, I didn’t look very hard). But a microblog is essentially like this blog, except it consists of shorter and more frequent posts. So rather than posting several paragraphs once a day or every few days, an author might post a couple of sentences several times a day. To read it in order, you would read it the same way as a blog: the most recent posts are at the top, so the further down you go, the further back in time you go.

One thing that is incredibly cool about Twitter and makes it completely unique from a blog is the “home” page. When you sign up for Twitter, you have the option to begin “following” other Twitter users, and they have the option to follow you (naturally, you can control your privacy settings). So when you log onto Twitter, it goes to your home page, which updates every time one of the people you are following makes a new post.

This is a capture of my Twitter home page. At the top, you can see the space for me to write “What I am doing” or whatever else I feel like posting about. Also notice the number “140″ above that box. Twitter limits you to only 140 characters per post. It becomes an interesting challenge getting your point across in a limited space. And you can see below the box posts of some of the people I follow: Felicia Day of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog and The Guild, Dr. Horrible himself, Brett McKay of The Art of Manliness, The Pioneer Woman, and Mike Purvis. Every time they “tweet” something, it is added to this page for me to read, and every time I write something, it is added on my page and on the home pages of the people who follow me.

It is a fun way to keep in touch with people that you know, and to read about what they are up to (which is often what we most want to hear anyway), and it is also fun to follow people you don’t necessarily know who tend to be writing for a wide audience of people they don’t know either (ie, evskeys, Wil Wheaton).

If Twitter is something that interests you, you should check it out! Play with it a little, start following people and you’ll quickly figure out how it works. And if you start an account, make sure you go to my page and click the little “follow” link beneath my picture, so I’ll know you’ve signed up and so I can follow you back.