Twitter - How does it work?

[acss]

I was wondering if someone could tell me how twitter works?
I know you post status updates, but that's as far as I know...

What I want to find out is, if you write a message to someone else, do they see it on their wall? or only if they're following you? and do other people also see it?

Can I do different settings for different groups like on Facebook? Ideally I want to know if I can write to someone without my whole friends group knowing?

Thanks...and apologies for putting so many questions in one!

[Arian Marie]

In order to use twitter, you need to sign up for the service. This is quite a simple step which will be done within a few minutes. You just have to go to the homepage of the website, and find the 'Sign Up' tab. Click on it, and a new web page will open, wherein you will have to register your log-in details, password, etc. You will also have an option of creating a short profile, and adding a profile picture to it. Once you are done with this simple sign up process, you are ready to start tweeting, follow your friends and promote your business.

In order to tweet, you will have to go to the homepage, wherein you will be able to type your 'tweet' - a 140 character message. (this limit was set to make the service compatible to text messages). While you type your tweet, the interface itself will show you how many characters are left. You also get the option of following your friends, and inviting other people to follow you. In order to follow your friends (...or some celebrity), you will have to go to the search options. You can either search your friends by their user name, or search them by their email id. In order to invite people to follow your tweets, you will have to send them the Invites. Tweeting regularly and adding a hint of humor to your tweets are some simple methods which can help you get more twitter followers. You can also send Direct Messages (DM) which can only be read by the person to whom you sent it. Similarly, you also have the option of replying to somebody's tweet by using the @reply feature.