how does twitter work?

[BlargFac 2.0]

is a hash tag. This is something that people can track. If you're discussing something of a popular topic (ex. MJ's death, you saw a lot of #R.I.P and such). It's just a method of seeing what people are doing

@ is for @replies or including someone in your tweet
You can say something like @_______ yourmessagehere and that is a tweet to that person (NOT A DIRECT MESSAGE). You can include people in your tweets as well with @. You can say "I'm at the book store with @____" It allows people to see who you're with, or how you respond to some other person's tweet (when you reply to a tweet, it automatically puts @(tweet's name here) and you type your message.

RT (ReTweet) is like E-mail forwarding, but Twitter version. You can include a full Tweet in RTs, but keep in mind, you're limited to 120 characters per tweet!

you can Direct Message someone if you're following them, and they're following you back. It's a more private way of communicating between friends than with all the @ replies from fans to celebs.

Hope this helps!