Could "ReTweeting" Become Ground Zero For Virulent Political Influence?Could "ReTweeting" Become Ground Zero For Virulent Political Influence?

Other than using Twitter a couple of times to point to some of Jon Stewart's hysterically funny videos, my public usage of Twitter (I'm "dberlind") is very much apolitical. I can't say the same however for the many people whose Twitter feeds I follow. It's becoming evident to me that it's not just what people are "tweeting" that could influence opinions, but what what they're "retweeting" or "RTing." Through retweeting, you can pretty much watch the virulence of some subject as it happens, in real-time.A individual post on Twitter -- like any of the ones I've done -- is often referred to as a tweet. "Tweet" is also a verb and refers to the process of posting a tweet to Twitter.

For those of you who have heard of Twitter but are afraid to go near it, Twitter is referred to by some as a microblogging service. But, from a technology perspective, it mashes the idea of broadcast & subscribe (a kissin' cousin to publish & subscribe) to SMS-based text messaging and puts it on the Web. With SMS text messaging on your phone, most "texters" send short messages (a 160 character limit) directly to specific recipients (a monocast model). With Twitter, you publish short messages (the limit is 140 characters) on the Twitter Web site and other people tune in by "following" you. Twitter offers a way to follow other members of Twitter.com or you can follow them using RSS.