can someone PLEASE explain "Twitter" to me?

[gleekgirl456]

i just got a twitter and im confused haha... okay soo if u follow someone famous like , Lea Michelle, and u reply or retweet will they actually get that? and what is the difference between reply and retweet?? thanks

[cre@tive @uthor]

Twitter is a social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read other user messages called tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author's profile page. Tweets are publicly visible by default, however senders can restrict message delivery to their friends list. Users may subscribe to other author tweets — this is known as following and subscribers are known as followers. As of late 2009, users can follow lists of authors instead of following individual authors. All users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, compatible external applications (such as, for smartphones), or by Short Message Service (SMS) available in certain countries.While the service is free, accessing it through SMS may incur phone service provider fees.

[Philip]

Tweet contents:
Content of Tweets according to Pear Analytics.San Antonio-based market research firm Pear Analytics analyzed 2,000 tweets (originating from the US and in English) over a 2-week period in August 2009 from 11:00a to 5:00p (CST) and separated them into six categories:
• Pointless babble — 41%
• Conversational — 38%
• Pass-along value — 9%
• Self-promotion — 6%
• Spam — 4%
• News — 4%
Social networking researcher Danah Boyd responded to the Pear Analytics survey by arguing that what the Pear researchers labelled "pointless babble" is better characterized as "social grooming" and/or "peripheral awareness" (which she explains as persons "want[ing] to know what the people around them are thinking and doing and feeling, even when co-presence isn’t viable").

Twitter is a social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read other user messages called tweets.
Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author's profile page. Tweets are publicly visible by default, however senders can restrict message delivery to their friends list. Users may subscribe to other author tweets — this is known as following and subscribers are known as followers.

Retweeting is more closer to forwarding than it is to replying.

Many bloggers use Twitter as a platform to promote their own blog. That’s an easy concept, no need to waste our time there. Instead, lets focus on something that is under-utilized by most bloggers: promoting other blogger’s content by “retweeting.”
The art of “retweeting” is best described as taking a twitter message someone else has posted, and rebroadcasting that same message to your followers. When broadcasting this message, you should give credit to the original poster. While retweeting sounds great for the original tweeter (since there is usually a link involved), retweeting can actually benefit you just as much if not more.
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