Top 10 Social Networking Sites

by Jonathan Strickland, Howstuffworks.com

2. Twitter

Twitter is part Web site, part Web service -- an online environment where users can create profiles, fill them with information and then build a network of people they "follow" (and a band of others who follow them). Twitter sends messages between users via the Short Message Service (SMS), better known as text messaging. Members send their texts through Twitter to those they allow to follow them. The messages, called Tweets, are super short: only 140 charters or shorter (there are technically 160 characters for use, but the first 20 are there to make room for user names in messages.)

The new phenomenon is called microblogging and it's incredibly popular.

"Even the president of the United States has a Facebook fan page and uses Twitter to reach the American public where he has over 262,000 followers," says Brenda Powell, president and founder of the company Social Networking Girls.

Some Twitterers use the service to arrange parties or other events. Others just like to keep their friends up to speed on what's going on in their lives. The messages can be sent via phone, through the Twitter Web site or one of hundreds new desktop or smart phone widgets.

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