can someone explain twitter to me?

[Jessi]

I don't completely understand the appeal either, but I do have some sort of idea of what it's about.

When you only have 140 characters to say what you want to say, thinking your post through is more often necessary than say, posting to Facebook. Needing to limit a post to a small number of characters is something I personally find a little annoying, but it allows users to post content that is short, sweet, and to the point.

The use of 'hash tags' is also popular on Twitter (for example, #AmericanIdol), and allows users to group their post with similarly themed posts. Users can look up a hash tag and see all of the posts associated with it. The use of hash tags also enables the ability to track trends and to see what people are buzzing about.

The Wikipedia article on Twitter offers up a lot of information about the website.