Compared to overseas, China's "Twitter" has just started, popular only within a tiny circle of white collar workers. White collar workers in China use Twitter for different reasons, some to learn English, some to keep up on gossip, some to pursue a girlfriend, some for marketing, but there is no doubt that they are all following current fashions.

Once upon a time, we were still cheering on the revolution of Web 2.0 brought on by the blog. The blog changed the web page's one-way transmission. Today, twitterers led by "Twitter" have once again launched a challenge to Myspace and Facebook, by integrating more mobile terminals. With the mobile phone and PDA, the computer is no longer the only publishing tool.

Compared to the blog, Twitter is shorter, faster, more interactive and more fashionable. From the practice of white collar workers, we cannot help exclaiming: Twitter has arrived, the blog is gone.


Overseas Twitter is a successful tool for integrated marketing and information dissemination.
The charm of 140 words

China's "fanfou," "jiwai" and "digu" have copied Twitter in different ways. Twitterers are also called "micro-bloggers" or "real-time bloggers" in China. A "micro-blog" is short in length, about 140 words, equivalent to two SMS messages, a sharp contrast to the length of other blogs. Reports about one’s daily life or earth-shaking events cannot be longer than 140 words. The "micro-blog," as the name implies, can be small and broad at the same time.

Interacting with followers

Within 140 words, people spend less than 30 seconds deciding whether to follow you or not. Some of your followers are your friends, but most are people who demand your information. Every twitter consists of followers and the "leader" who is being followed, interacting with each other.


If you chase a girl on Twitter, you won't fail.
Practice English on Twitter, and catch up on company gossip
A blog gives everybody the chance to become a "reporter" of events that they have experienced, however, everybody on "Twitter" has the chance to become instant "reporters" of the events they are experiencing. Whether during the Mumbai terrorist attacks or the Hudson River airplane crash, Twitter showed its powerful information gathering and sharing functions. Even the reports of CNN searched for information from Twitter, and CNN itself has become the largest target that Twitter follows.

By People's Daily Online