Facebook. Myspace. Any instant messaging. Social networking is the craze worldwide. How many times do you go on Facebook throughout the day? Once? Twice? Ten times? It's okay, there are thousands around campus on Facebook at the same time you are.
Twitter, however, is a journalist's dream, more specifically a sports journalist's dream. If you have a Twitter account, you know what I am talking about. Along with Facebook, it is one of the most addicting social networking sites.
It is updated all the time. Every minute there is one, two or more tweets a person can read, depending on how many people you follow. I follow over 400 people including sports writers, friends, sports leagues, teams and athletes, coaches, magazines, newspapers and breaking news. I will never have a dull moment on Twitter.
You can follow some of the most famous people in the world. For example, Barack Obama is on Twitter. Other examples are Tiger Woods, Oprah Winfrey, Diddy, Al Gore, Ashton Kutcher, Eminem, Lady Gaga, Shaquille O'Neal and yes, Charlie Sheen. Sheen has created a trending topic on Twitter saying "#winning" after almost every tweet. He is a Twitter phenomenon.
Sports journalists use Twitter like no other people use it. I have been following No. 3 Oregon State baseball (@Beaver_Baseball), Oregon State softball (@OregonStateSB), No. 4 Oregon State gymnastics (@OregonStateGym) and all Oregon State athletics (@beaverathletics) all on Twitter. What can get better than that?
You don't need to read or watch the news anymore. Heck, if you don't want to see the highlights of sports games and just want to see the score, you don't need anything else besides Twitter. Do you want to know what your favorite Oregon State athletes are doing? You don't need to follow them around campus, you just need to follow them on Twitter.
Stephen Paea, James Rodgers, Ryan Katz, Carter Bell, Jared Cunningham, Leslie Mak and Olivia Vivian are all on Twitter.
Do I need to tell you any other great things about Twitter?
I almost forgot the best thing about Twitter: a person can only use 140 characters to share his or her news. You don't have to read a full article, like this one, to know what is happening in the world.
The world heard about US Airways Flight 1549 landing in the Hudson River by none other than a simple picture on Twitter.
Oh yeah, there are pictures too.
People think that it is just a whole bunch of Facebook statuses and nothing else, but those people are wrong. One can learn a lot about a person, an event and any news possible through Twitter.
Robert Scoble, a blogger for The New York Times, said it best: "Twitter lets me hear from a lot of different people in a very short period of time."
