Jennifer Francis

Case Study
Twitter
The working name was just "Status" for a while. It actually didn’t have a name. We
were trying to name it, and mobile was a big aspect of the product early on ... We
liked the SMS aspect, and how you could update from anywhere and receive from
anywhere.
We wanted to capture that in the name—we wanted to capture that feeling: the
physical sensation that you’re buzzing your friend’s pocket. It’s like buzzing all
over the world. So we did a bunch of name-storming, and we came up with the
word "twitch," because the phone kind of vibrates when it moves. But "twitch" is
not a good product name because it doesn’t bring up the right imagery. So we
looked in the dictionary for words around it, and we came across the word
"twitter," and it was just perfect. The definition was "a short burst of
inconsequential information," and "chirps from birds." And that’s exactly what the
product was.
—Jack Dorsey

What we have to do is deliver to people the best and freshest most relevant
information possible. We think of Twitter as it's not a social network, but it's an
information network. It tells people what they care about as it is happening in the
world.
—Evan Williams

Twitter; Founded by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams & Biz Stone

 We Media
Twitter can be described as a mobile social network service or micro blog
as it allows users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets
are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author's
profile page and delivered to the author's subscribers who are known as
followers.

Though you can ‘Tweet’ from your home computer or laptop, Twitter mostly
relies on their mobile users who have the ability to post as they’re on the
go. “On the Train” “Nearly at work” “Having a Panini for lunch…Yum”

You could say that twitter is an original but what they have really done is
cut out all the other parts of any other social networking sites. Its kind of
like Facebook but all you can do is change your status. Then there’s the
blogging element of having followers. It’s the most basic form of social
networking.

The first Tweet was on March 21st 2006 where Dorsey published “Just
setting up my twittr” It went Global in July 2006
 Free Speech/Free Press
Twitter is a free social networking site and just like blogging
and Facebook, it promotes free speech as its all about the
user who is free to Tweet, Blog or Like whatever they feel.
From what I can tell twitter is egalitarian, though it can be said to be controlled or
maybe leveraged by the power elites; Celebrities. Who have thousands of followers
who’s RSS feeds are monitoring every move they make. Tweets such as Stephen
Fry’s: “I’m stuck in a lift” can make the news.

Keeping with the idea of free speech, Twitter also doesn't restrict the idea of free press,
meaning that Citizen journalism which is enhanced by blogs, social networking, mobiles,
file sharing, video streaming, forums and twitter, hold a lot of credit to Twitter, especially
as they don’t have the power to restrict any ‘tweets’ unless its been reported, in the
public interest
 Institutions
Dorsey, and other members of Odeo formed Obvious Corporation and acquired
Odeo and all of its assets—including Odeo.com and Twitter.com—from the
investors and other shareholders.
[Wikipedia]

Twitter isn’t connected to any kind of major company. It started out as being
part of Odeo which is a podcasting company, and as Twitter has almost
nothing to do with podcasting it was bound to fly out on its own eventually,
so they started their own company in April 2007.
If anything there would be some kind of grudge between Williams and
Charles River's who were co founders of the now nonexistent Odeo as
Williams bought out Charles River's interest in the company, as well as
several other investors, and reformed the organization under a new
company, Obvious Corp, which planned to develop new products, including
Twitter
 We Think
(New Media)
Twitter is one big example of We Think, as the whole point of it is to share
and receive information about yourself and the people that you follow.

Pointless babble – 41%

Conversational – 38% This deduces that Twitter is used by a large
Pass-along value – 9% age range but solely for those aged between
Self-promotion – 6% 18 and 34. University students and middle
Spam – 4% aged.
News – 4%
Professional Amateurs /Open Source
By getting to the second tweets of those that you follow a range of ideas can be
shared, this varies from what kind of new cereal to try, to what music to listen to.
Also even if you don’t follow a person, so long as their privacy setting doesn’t restrict
people they don’t know then what they tweet is available to everybody on Twitter.
This is an example of Freedom of Speech but Twitter is also open source as it has
the ability to change how we communicate on the internet.
As long as you know what your looking for you can find anything and anyone or
Twitter, as Magazines and Companies have their own Twitter page. Also as the
previous statistics showed, 6% of users are all about self promotion
I don’t think that Twitter users are focused all that much on promoting as they would
be through use of Facebook or MySpace. Not forgetting that the highest percentage
of usage goes to Conversation and pointless babble, being a professional amateur
doesn’t really apply in this case
There is a suggests section so that is anyone is having trouble with the way Twitter
is being run they have a chance to share their opinion and have it changed. This is
what open source is all about, having the ability to reshape the internet
All of these points are a way of showing internet neutrality as Twitter doesn’t try to
control the internet, it relies on the freedom of its users to be successful, and luckily
wont be effected by the Digital Economy Bill if it gets passed.
 Copyright/Creative Commons
This license is you authorizing us to make your Tweets available to the rest of the
world and to let others do the same. But what’s yours is yours – you own your
content.
You retain your rights to any Content you submit, post or display on or through the
Services. By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services,
you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to
sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit,
display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods
(now known or later developed). http://twitter.com/tos
Twitter respects the intellectual property rights of others and expects users of the
Services to do the same. We will respond to notices of alleged copyright
infringement that comply with applicable law and are properly provided to us. If you
believe that your Content has been copied in a way that constitutes copyright
infringement, please provide us with the following information:

These are all the rules about copyright or infringement made by twitter, creative
commons only becomes an option if it is subject to the “Following Information” and
all six rules can be found on the twitter website
 Access/Gate Keeping
The largest incentive to have people join twitter are the celebrities. They aren’t
being paid to have a twitter account they just do and they have tens of thousands
of fans following them and reading their every move. Twitter relies on this to bring
them more users every week
Gate Keeping refers to who gets access to see and know what, may it be on the
internet or in the newspapers.
Twitter gate-keeps those that don’t have a twitter account by not allowing those
without one to view profiles.
Users can say what they like on their tweets, may it be to swear or be racist. The
only way this would stop is if someone reports one of their feeds as indecent.
There will then be an investigation which may then lead to their account being
shut down and a legal ban from the site
A security vulnerability was reported on April 7, 2007. Since Twitter used the
phone number of the sender of an SMS message as authentication, malicious
users could update someone else's status page by using SMS spoofing. The
vulnerability could only be used if the spoofer knew the phone number registered
to their victim's account. Within a few weeks of this discovery Twitter introduced
an optional personal identification number (PIN) that its users could specify to
authenticate SMS-originating messages. [Wikipedia]
 Marxist Theories of Control
Twitter is all about a free flow of ideas, and so far has had no issue with the
government or any other kind of company/organisation or group. SO far
everyone loves it, especially as it has began to generate so much hype even
though it has existed for 3months short of 4years.

I think the main comment that can fully explain the ideology about twitter users
is this: “Adults are just catching up to what teens have been doing for years”
Jeremiah Owyang

A lot of words have been thrown around to describe the phenomenon that is
Twitter but I think this really says it all…. Text
What
I’m
Thinking
To
Everyone
Reading
 Power Elites
Twitter launched the beta version of its Verified Accounts service on June 11, 2009,
allowing famous or notable people to make it clear which Twitter accounts belong to
them. The home pages of these verified accounts display a badge to indicate this
special status. All this after a Twitter administrator's password was guessed by a
dictionary attacker who Falsified tweets about sexual exploits and drug-relations

This is unfair as it seems that only the famous people are getting some kind are
getting better treatment, this isn’t internet neutrality
Though twitter isn’t a monopoly or oligarchy though it may be unique, social
networking sites like MSN and Facebook still rank higher than it. Though it does get
the attention of papers like the Wall Street Journal who commented about social
networking websites but Twitter in particular
“Fans say they are a good way to keep in touch with busy friends. But some users
are starting to feel 'too' connected, as they grapple with check-in messages at odd
hours, higher cellphone bills and the need to tell acquaintances to stop announcing
what they're having for dinner”

This shows that it has got the attention of the power elites i.e. Celebrities and others
in the public eye though it may not be one itself