What is Twitter Exactly?

Over the past year and a half, it seems no matter where you go someone is talking about Twitter. Whether it's some celebrity like Aston Kutcher, a big company like Whole Foods, or a little person like you or me, it seems as if everyone and everything is sharing themselves on Twitter.

But what is Twitter Exactly?

Twitter is a free micro-blogging service that allows its users to post short messages, called Tweets, which let the Tweeter communicate quickly with their friends, family, co-workers and business associates, or whoever happens to be following them. Oh, did I mention that these posts must be must be 140 characters or less?

Twitter is one of the fastest growing sites on the internet, with over 20 million current users and hundreds of thousands of people joining every day worldwide. In fact, according to recent data, this past February, Twitter was growing at over 1000% per month. That's pretty amazing!

People have found many uses for Twitter and their Tweets, using the service to do things ranging from letting their friends know what time to meet up for a movie to sharing a website with family members to staying in contact with customers.

Twitter has become a very powerful tool for business owners and internet marketers to find potential customers in their target niche and begin forming a relationship, even prior to making any sort of sale.

In fact, Twitter has become so important and so powerful that many active Twitter members even use professional software and services to grow their follower base and send out their Tweets.