Getting to know Twitter
What is it?
Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent messages. People write short updates, often called "tweets" of 140 characters or fewer. These messages are posted to your profile or your blog, sent to your followers, and are searchable on Twitter search. MRG - on Twitter, usernames are indicated by "@" - so I'm "@wav4rm" which works as a username and a tag. Similarly, anything with "#" before it, like "#Ebike" is a topic tag, and when you click it, will show you other posts with that same tag. It's pretty cool how they integrate all the standard networking features into such a simple product
How do I find my friends?
When you create an account, you can search for people by name or user name, import friends from other networks, or invite friends via email. If you don't want to do that, follow some of the people we've suggested. Once you've found your friends, follow them to start getting their updates. MRG - I follow a mix of news-type folks (anderson cooper, Time magazine), musicians/actors/celebrities (steve buscemi, michael ian black, trent reznor), and bloggers/"media gurus"/people who I share common interests with.
What does it mean to follow someone on Twitter?
Following someone simply means receiving their Twitter updates. When you follow someone, every time they post a new message, it will appear in your Twitter home page. New messages are added to your home page as people post them, so you always get the updates in real time. When you log in, you can see what the latest updates are. Twitter offers other ways to follow people too: you can get updates from certain people on your phone! The cool thing about following people is that you see who they reply to, and can then check out their profiles to see if they're interesting or someone that you'd like to follow
Who reads my updates?
It's up to you. Your followers read your updates, and anyone else who comes across them in a search. All public updates are posted to the public timeline (accessible from your home page in the Everyone tab.) Your Twitter profile is public by default; if you're hesitant to have strangers read your updates, protect your profile to approve followers and keep your updates out of search.
How can I send updates to Twitter?
Twitter offers many ways to post updates: from the web in the update box, from your phone, from your mobile web browser using m.twitter.com, or from any third party application made by the talented folks who've utilized our API. MRG - I use Twittergadget, which integrates with Gmail as a little sidebar
What are @Replies?
An @reply is a public message sent from one person to another, distinguished from normal updates by the @username prefix. If a message begins with @username, we collect it as a reply and post it in the replies tab. Reply publicly to any update on Twitter by using the @username format. Following is not necessary to reply to someone, and all of your replies are visible in the replies tab of your home page sidebar.
What are Direct Messages?
Direct messages are private messages sent from one Twitter person to another. You can only send a direct message to a person who follows you. When you receive a direct message, we save it in your direct message inbox, accessible from the Direct Message tab in the sidebar in your home page. Set your email preferences to notify you by mail if you have a new message.
What does RT, or retweet, mean?
RT is short for retweet. This isn't an official Twitter command or feature, but people add RT somewhere in a tweet to indicate that part of their tweet includes something they're re-posting from another person's tweet, sometimes with a comment of their own.
but for anyone who's interested (excerpted from Twitter FAQ 
I was dead serious, and thank you very much for the comprehensive information because some of my friends and family talk about it.
