Explain how twitter works please?

[Christian]

I want a twitter account but I find it so confusing with the #'s and @'s I don't get what it all means and why you'd use it, could someone please explain twitter to me thanks

[Josh]

a # is a hashtag-trending topics and adjectives and random things at the end of a tweet (ex. #excited, #problemsihave)
a @ is a public message to someone

[Caitlin]

# are called hashtags. You use them to say an emotion or something you want people to see and sometimes people use them to start trending things. Like since your confused about twitter you could put #confused. The @ are like how you find someone. For example, you would type in the search bar @TheEllenShow to get ellen degeneres' show page. All twitter is basically is connecting with celebrities. Well thats how i look at it. You just go to their page and click follow. To earn followers you have to start putting tweets on celebs, corporations, tv shows ect. page so people know your out there and they will follow you. RT means Retweet. Its basically the same as a like on fb. If a celeb RT that means they saw it. Sometimes they may even Reply to you. For your own tweets, right next to the log out button there is a little pen thing. You just type in whatever you want and only the people who are following you can see it. I hope this helps out some! It does get easier after awhile!

[Greg]

With Twitter, you get 160 characters to say what you want. When people are using the '@' it means they are directing a tweet toward someone in specific. For example, if I want to send a tweet to someone who's Twitter 'Handle'(or address) is JonDoe I would put @JonDoe and then whatever I want to say to them, so they will see this message is at them. The '#' is what they call Hashtagging. What it does is make that subject that you typed after the # a topic. If that 'topic' gets into enough tweets, they it becomes a "Trend." Here is what Wikipedia has to say:

"Users can group posts together by topic or type by use of hashtags – words or phrases prefixed with a "#" sign. Similarly, the "@" sign followed by a username is used for mentioning or replying to other users. To repost a message from another Twitter user, and share it with one's own followers, the retweet function is symbolized by "RT" in the message."

I hope this all helps