By Maria Hechanova
Voices

Chirp, chirp. Tweet, tweet. It’s a bird, it’s a plane. No, it’s Twitter!

In 1999, Jack Dorsey was a New York University dropout working as a programmer for a taxi-dispatch service. Within a year, the twenty-something St. Louis native had moved to San Francisco and was working on a new idea for digital social networking.

Dorsey’s idea was based on a desire to keep in touch with friends without being tied to his computer. His inspiration came from his former job, where taxi-cab drivers constantly updated their dispatchers on their location and readiness to take passengers.

In San Francisco, Dorsey worked as a software engineer for the podcasting company Odeo. He pitched his idea to co-workers Biz Stone and Evan Williams. In May 2007, Twitter, Inc. was born.

The application is a real-time social networking Web site that gives users the opportunity to keep in touch or “follow” people. It asks the question, “What are you doing?” Users give their updates in 140 characters or fewer.

The character limit is borrowed from the standard 160 characters allowed by mobile texting or short-messaging services. In a Twitter message, 20 characters are saved for the user name, leaving 140 for the message.

During the early stages of Twitter, two of the brainstormed names were “Status” and “Stat.us.”  According to an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Dorsey wanted to create a “buzz,” like the vibration from a cell phone, and came up with the word “twitch.” After looking through words in the dictionary, he came up with “twitter.”

From June 2008 to June 2009, Twitter’s audience size grew from 593,000 users to 20 million, according to statistics gathered by Comscore.com, a Web site tracking company.

The key to being an expert tweeter is to keep your message short. For example, a user might tweet, “User Name//is reading a story about Twitter.” Privacy settings allow users to control who follows their updates. Tweeters can also send direct messages instead of posting it for everyone to see.

Celebrities such as Britney Spears, “American Idol” host Ryan Seacrest, Oprah Winfrey and “Today” anchor Ann Curry have Twitter accounts. You can check out the list of famous tweeters at wefollow.com.

Journalists are also finding it useful. Sean McLaughlin, chief meteorologist and co-anchor for KPHO-TV CBS 5 News in Phoenix, believes Twitter is a great resource.

“Twitter has granted journalists instant access to thousands of sources, story ideas and real topics of discussions going on live,” McLaughlin said.

The Asian American Journalists Association will be sending Twitter messages throughout the AAJA Convention. To receive these updates, sign up at twitter.com/aajaboston09.

We’d like to follow you too. Once you’ve signed up, let us know (in 140 characters or fewer) what you’re up to.