Iv'e never been on Twitter, and at the present time, I have no desire to join. From what Iv'e heard about it, it sounds like it's exactly the same as Facebook. You give status updates on both Facebook and Twitter. I'm guessing that there's probably alot more to Twitter then I know of. Please explain to me the difference between the two websites? Thanks!

I'm pretty new to Twitter myself but I mainly use it for conversation with friends. Basically you can only send messages that are 140 characters or less and you 'designate' who you're sending it to by putting @ before their name (ie: @BradRuss) and then you type your message. You can follow people which means that you'll be able to see whatever they've "Tweeted" in a thread, kind of like Facebook. They have two options; one being that your Tweets can be public or private. At first I had them as public which means that anyone can follow you and see what you've Tweeted. In that aspect it's not like Facebook where you send Friend requests and then you can approve or not. So I think that if you have your Tweets public, then anyone can reply to them or 'retweet' them, which means that they send whatever you've posted to other people. I still like Facebook a lot better than Twitter, but I did make my Tweets private (meaning that if someone wants to follow you, they have to get your permission), because at first I was getting all these notices about being "followed" and frankly it was kind of creepy.

Hopefully I've described it with at least some accuracy. I'm still learning how to use it! Maybe some other SO members would be a little more helpful!

The differences are hard to explain. I didn't really get Twitter until I got an account and gave it a try. It took me a good few months of tweeting to understand why I'd want to use Twitter, but once I did, I fell in love.

I'd categorize Facebook as a social network for connecting/reconnecting with friends, while Twitter is a social network for sharing ideas. They both have their advantages over the other. I'd say that Twitter has really helped re-spark my creative side.

Here's a good blog entry (http://www.twitip.com/twitter-versus-facebook/) that explains the differences, and why one would want to use both.

Thanks Andrea and Brad for taking the time to explain that to me. It made total sense to me. I'm sure that Twitter is great, and most likely addictive, but I still don't really have much desire to join. I'm glad you two enjoy it though. Thanks again, and I hope you both have an amazing weekend! :)

I find this guy pretty funny, and found this tweet very funny lol:

Stephen Colbert
@StephenAtHome

I've got a great idea for a social media site that lets you send out messages no longer than 70 characters. I'm going to call it Twit.

28 Jul via SocialOomph

Twitter is for following comedians/other celebs

Twitter is for following comedians/other celebs

That's not to say some celebrities don't use facebook.

That's not to say some celebrities don't use facebook.
True plus the fanpages are sometimes run by the actual person

Im just saying I mostly follow comedians LOL

Twitter has it's good stuff. As Jack pointed out, it's a great way to read funny lines posted by comics and other funny people.

Some comics like Patton Oswalt love to post trending topics which give followers a chance to reply with funny answers. That's lots of fun, and it's very challenging to come up with jokes on the fly.

Twitter is essentially nothing more than an elaborate, 140-character-limited version of Facebook's news feed and posting functionality.

I take it you prefer facebook.

Facebook has a 420-character limit, but doesn't look as elaborate as Twitter does. Glad you're on the substance over style bandwagon.

I never been on Twitter but I have heard that a lot of celebrity types are on Twitter and that you can actually get in contact with them on there and have conversations. But that is all I know about it.

I can spend hours on Facebook, but I can't last more than two minutes on Twitter. It just doesn't have that "fun" factor.

Jason Alexander has a Twitter site and OMG, some of the stuff he tweets... even George Costanza would be shocked!