What is the point of Twitter?

The world’s richest man, Bill Gates, is on Twitter. But receiving updates that it is raining where he is, and that his sipping his favourite fruit juice, does NOT interest me.

So what is the point of Twitter? And what is it? Here is how I found out…
I was desperate. My team was playing. It was an important game in the season and I had no access to a TV.

So I turned to the Internet and launched a search for real time updates on the game. And that’s how a landed on the Twitter search page here.

So I typed in the relevant search criteria as follows:



What happened next was fascinating. I was getting real time updates on the game from people across the globe that were watching and sending Twitter messages.

From this experience, I finally understood what Twitter was. It’s like your cell phone SMS, on STERIODS!
So I finally had an answer.

What is Twitter? It is SMS on steroids.

Next…I had to understand the point of it all!

Actually my Arsenal vs Stoke experience illustrates the point.

• You can get real time updates on an event happening right now. (Tip: watch how people are going to use Twitter during the FIFA 2010 World Cup)
• If you look for them, there are interesting people on Twitter that keep you updated about stuff you actually care to know about.
• I can’t lie, getting a message in my twitter account directly from Bill Gates or Sergey Brin (co-founder of Google), has a certain appeal to it!

In the instant gratification, wanting to know right now and make your point in a few words society that we now live in. Twitter is the perfect fit.

And here is a short list of some interesting people you can get messages from on Twitter:

Bill Gates – Richest man in the world https://twitter.com/BillGates
Chris Anderson - Founder of TED conference http://twitter.com/TEDchris
Oprah Winfrey – We all know who she is http://twitter.com/Oprah
Richard Branson - Chairman of Virgin http://twitter.com/richardbranson
Anderson Cooper - CNN Correspondent http://twitter.com/andersoncooper
Guy Kawasaki - Entreprenuer http://twitter.com/GuyKawasaki
Harvard Business Review - http://twitter.com/HarvardBiz/
John cleese – British Comedy Icon http://twitter.com/JohnCleese
Barack Obama - Current US President http://twitter.com/BarackObama
Trevor Noah - South African Comedian https://twitter.com/Trevornoah

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