Twitter is perhaps the best thing to happen to the Internet since sliced bread. Ok, maybe it isn't quite that good, but it is definitely close. From Ashton Kutcher to Demi Moore, even the celebrities have jumped on the Twitter bandwagon. One of the best things about Twitter right off the bat is the fact that there are no annoying ads or pop up ads that you have to deal with. It's nice to know that you can go somewhere on the Internet without being bombarded by advertising.

Twitter is also great for networking. Given the clean, easy-to-use design, it is fairly simple to join other people's conversations when they are talking about something that you are interested in. In order to find out who is talking about what, you can start by simply searching for a term that interests you. For example, I love to run and exercise. Therefore, I would simply type in the word “run” into the search bar located on the main page. Within a matter of seconds, Twitter will return active conversations that other people are having about running.

Twitter is obviously great for networking, but it is also great for asking questions and finding out information. For example, a few weeks ago, I was interested in finding out whether or not there was a place that sold frozen yogurt near where I lived. Within a matter of seconds, I had several replies from people I didn't even know, telling me where I could find frozen yogurt. It was significantly faster than if I had gone to Google, typed in my question and waited for the results. Because even then, I would have to sift through the results on Google to maybe find the answer I was looking for. Instead, I had several people telling me directly where I could go to find frozen yogurt. I was elated.

With the rise in popularity, Twitter also has a ton of cool applications that you can use with it to facilitate its use. For instance, rather than using the regular Twitter interface, I downloaded something called TweetDeck, which I actually found out about by talking with someone on Twitter (go figure). TweetDeck has been a godsend because it organizes your Twitter information so that you can see all of the tweets from the people you are following in one column while in the next column you can see all of the replies that people send you so that you don't miss a single one. In the other two columns, you can see the hottest trending topics on Twitter at that moment as well as any direct messages that people send you. It's a nice neat little way to use Twitter more effectively.

There is also another application that I have found to be effective, and that is something called TwitPic. With TwitPic, you can actually upload pictures from your computer to have them post directly on Twitter. For instance, the other night, I made myself this beautiful dinner and had to take a picture of it to share with friends on Twitter. With TwitPic, I was able to include a short caption/description of the picture before uploading it directly to Twitter. The other cool thing about TwitPic is that it allows other people on Twitter to comment on your photo and tells you how many times it has been viewed as well!