What Is Twitter?

Twitter is a micro blogging platform that has been built using the Ruby On Rails framework.

To be honest, I don’t know a whole lot about Ruby On Rails apart from it seems very similar in the concept of Wordpress.

By that I mean it’s a system or structure of code you can use as a foundation for other platforms to be built upon. I liken it to Wordpress because you can take the standard Wordpress software and build on it with plugins, themes, forums, etc…

So when the team at Twitter want to add any new features or make changes, they can do so by adding to the existing framework of Ruby On Rails.

Twitter works in the same or similar way as your mobile phone, by sending out short SMS or Instant messaging Via the web, These messages or posts are referred to as “tweets” and are sent out in a text format of 140 characters or less.

Your posts or tweets are received instantly by everyone who is on your followers list as soon as you publish your post, almost instantly thousands of people at a time can be informed of what you are doing, (this obviously depends on the number of followers you have).

Because twitter has been built around the concept of social networking and community you have the ability to follow and be followed by people from all over the world with similar interests and beliefs.

Twitters main catch phrase is “What Are You Doing?“, so it makes it very tempting to use twitter as a way of informing the people in your world of your day to day activities.

There are many differing opinions about the best way to use twitter, I personally don’t use twitter to tell you what I’m about to eat for lunch, and you won’t see me tweeting about stubbing my toe.

What I do like to use twitter for, is to share valuable content that I find on the web that my followers, friends or family would also find interesting and useful.

Twitter is great for sending out prayer requests or finding people in need of prayer (James 5:15) and is great for sending out encouraging references of scripture and testimonies.(Psalm 119:105)

If used correctly twitter can be a very powerful tool, but if used to constantly send out posts of no real value you run the risk of your tweets falling on deaf ears.

Personally, if I see someone sending out a barrage of useless information about their breakfast menu or what socks they are going to wear to work today, or even worse, constantly trying to sell me useless money making opportunities at every possible chance they get, then I will usually hit the nofollow button or just ignore every tweet they send out.

So when they do send out something of value I don’t read it because they have given me the impression that everything they tweet about is of no interest or value to me.

Twitter can be a lot of fun and a very powerful and useful tool in your ministry if used correctly.

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