get over your confusion and get on twitter.

It's pretty amusing that Twitter has actually been around for a few (I think two?) years now but in the past three months, its popularity and notoriety has skyrocketed - and surprisingly Oprah was LATE in the game to endorse this social media craze. Now a regular tweeter, I really don't understand why people are so against using Twitter. No one my age was skeptical to sign up for Facebook, but now I have friends hesitant about posting their daily activities, thoughts and whatnot on a list. News flash: People can stalk you a million times better on Facebook than on Twitter unless you're stupid enough to say...

@idiot starbucks in 30 Rock at 4:17pm reading a book on self help.

There are no incriminating pictures, extended bios, birthdays, email addresses, or anything like that on Twitter. Sure, people post pictures with apps like TwitPic, but they're not being tagged with your name for companies to find you taking a tequila shot before your 21st birthday. You can even set your account so that people have to request to "follow" you, kind of like friending.

Ok, hopefully the safe-factor has been established. If you're on Twitter, before beneficial functionality is addressed, you might have some questions about general functionality. Like what the hell does RT mean? Here is some Twitter etiquette...

• If you want to reply to or reference a Twitter user, write @username
• RT means retweet, aka copying and pasting someone else's post and giving them credit. Example:

• Twitter trend topics are on the right bar and these are the most referenced words, phrases, etc. If you click them, you can see the list of all Twitter users posts including that word or phrase. To be perfectly honest, I haven't explored the topic of Twitter trends... save that for another post.

But why use it if you're not a business? How can Twitter benefit you personally? Below is a brief list of the benefits I see. In another post I'll include some helpful, entertaining and interesting articles for you to peruse (the links I was inserting weren't showing up). Before I get my list started, here is a blurb from the Ogilvy Entertainment blog (www.ogilvyentertainmentblog.com, @OE_TWEED) article illustrating the spectrum of tweetable uses.

"...Twitter is a marketing opportunity not to be easily overlooked. You can follow our president (“Barack Obama”), stay in tune with your favorite artists or simply tell your friends what you ate for breakfast. But Twitter is bigger and encroaching into unforeseen territory. It is headlining our news and beating out traditional reporters through its nimbleness – The Victorian Brushfires, Hudson River plane crash and the Mumbai attacks were all reported on Twitter. Doctors are using Twitter to share information about major medical procedures and companies are tapping into this source to do better business. (Check out the latest article from the NYT.)"

TWITTER'S GREATNESS IN A NUTSHELL:

1. EFFICIENCY - Unfortunately there are only 24 hours in the day to squeeze in eating, sleeping, work, maintaining friendships, following news, running errands, etc. Twitter consolidates your news headlines and friend updates (without stupid quiz results like Facebook's news feed). More on that later in the list. The short-form blog format allows you to follow the thoughts, happenings and news of a lot more people and sources than following 25 blogs (like this one). Who has the time to read this??

2. REESTABLISHING WRITING SKILLS - Some fear that my generation, and those younger than us, are losing the ability to write in a smart, effective, and grammatically correct way. I can't say that Twitter helps grammar, but the 140 character limit of each tweet makes you think about how to most concisely and accurately convey your intended message. This requires more creative thinking than one might expect.

3. NEWS SOURCE - Forget picking up a copy of the NYTimes and Wall Street Journal to stay on top of everything. Ignore the links to those same websites in your favorites bar in Safari or Firefox. Browse the headlines of the publications you depend on in a consolidated list and save time. I used to be awful about following current events, but if my eye catches a CNN post while I'm checking up on what my friends are doing, I am much more likely to click and read.

4. PROMOTION TOOL - Businesses aren't the only ones using Twitter for promotional purposes. Post websites that your family and friends have been working on. This has been especially useful as a recent grad. I post links to my friends' portfolio websites all the time because you never know who is following someone who is following someone on Twitter that could land you a job...did that make sense? (knows someone who knows somoeone...) Also in the promotional sense, it's a reference tool. Yesterday Twitter users everywhere would post #followfriday followed by a list of people they suggest you follow. It's a personal endorsement.

5. ARCHIVE GOOD INFO - Use the favorites tool to maintain a list of Tweets that interested you. That's how I collected the links I'm about to share with you.

That's a wrap on my opinion.

FOLLOW @TWEETREPORT FOR TWITTER ADVICE, NEWS, ETC.

And just to end things on a less serious note...here's my fun find from welovetypography.com today!