A Twitter Lexicon
Twitter is my favorite microblogging service. There are many, many glossaries of Twitter vocabulary on the web. So many, in fact, it’s almost overwhelming to a newbie to Twitter.
Let’s come up with the top 10 words that someone new to Twitter should know. Here are eight that I came up with quickly. Can you help round out the list?
- Tweet: Your 140-character (or shorter) message
- Twittering: The act of sending your tweet
- Followers: People who receive your tweets
- Retweet: Forwarding a tweet to your followers
- @ : The symbol that precedes the name of a person you’re replying to
- Tweep: Someone you know on Twitter
- Tweeple: See “tweep”
- Twoops: Accidentally sending a direct (private) message publicly
(And if you’re wondering “what’s Twitter?” see the clear and concise description from Common Craft, the company that specializes in explaining complex things in plain English.)
August 1st, 2008 at 9:55 am
The lingo that I get asked about the very most is actually old computer geek stuff. So these aren’t Twitter specific, but I don’t think I got for more than a couple of days until I see somebody ask me directly (or the Twitter community at large) what they mean.
w00t: Those aren’t ohs, those are zeros. That is an old gaming term that could have a couple of meanings, but it’s generally accepted as “we own the other team”. It used to be a victory cry after playing games with people online. Now it’s a more generic term often used for something that is really great.
FTW: “for the win”. There are some other more vulgar representations, but this is what most people refer to it as. A nice nod to game shows, and another exclamation of joy or victory.
noob: Same as newbie. You used that to start your post.
August 1st, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Twam, twammer, twamming — Twitter spam. As in, don’t do it.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:29 pm
I’ve gotten asked about emoticons a lot – the smileys that some Twitter folks use to punctuate their Tweets and add a bit more emotional depth to the flat text. Also, Summize is a key Twitter term for searching conversation threads and keywords on http://www.summize.com, especially when Twitter Replies aren’t showing up.
August 14th, 2008 at 8:31 am
Great list – here are two more:
Tweetup: A gathering scheduled by using Twitter to communicate to attendees
Tmeet: To meet someone in person for the first time, who you previously only knew through Twitter (I’ve been trying -in a fun way- for awhile to come up with that term, and explained it more here: http://adamcohen.typepad.com/adamsblog/2008/08/a-suggestion-for-the-twitter-lexicon.html )
Thanks!
Adam
September 8th, 2008 at 11:35 am
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December 29th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Great that uoi include the Common Craft video. I use Common Craft videos to explain Web 2.0 to my mother and anyone else. Always well put together.
Anthony Russo
Conferencing Consultant
Great America Networks Conferencing
arusso@ganconference.com
http://www.ganconference.com
http://blog.ganconference.com/
Skype: anth.russo
Twitter: @AnthonyRusso
February 27th, 2009 at 4:35 am
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