Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent messages. People write short updates, often called "Tweets" of 140 characters or fewer. These messages are posted to your profile or your blog, sent to your followers, and are searchable on Twitter search.
All you need to use Twitter is an internet connection or a mobile phone. Join us here! Once you're in, type your first update into the web box. To get an idea of what other people are saying or doing on Twitter, check out Twitter search to see what Twitter's all about. You can search by keyword or just check out the trending topics to see what's hot on Twitter right now.
When you create an account, you can search for people by name or user name, import friends from other networks, or invite friends via email. If you don't want to do that, follow some of the people we've suggested. Once you've found your friends, follow them to start getting their updates.
Following someone simply means receiving their Twitter updates. When you follow someone, every time they post a new message, it will appear on your Twitter home page. New messages are added to your home page as people post them, so you always get the updates in real time. When you log in, you can see what the latest updates are. Twitter offers other ways to follow people too: you can get updates from certain people on your phone!
After you click the 'Follow' button on someone's profile, you're following them. The 'Follow' button will change to blue and will say 'Following'. If you've registered your phone with Twitter, you can set up text notification preferences for a person as well. See a list of people you're following by clicking on the following link on your profile page or on your home page's sidebar.
Twitter sends you an email when someone new follows you. Set up your email preferences to notify you when you have a new follower. The 'Followers' link on your profile page or home page's sidebar will also tell you how many followers you have.
Twitter recently added follow and update limits for stability and abuse control. You can read more about this here.
It's up to you. Your followers read your updates, and anyone else who comes across them in a search. Your Tweets are public by default; if you're hesitant to have strangers read your updates, protect your Tweets to approve followers and keep your updates out of search.
Yes, you can. If you block someone, they won't be able to follow you or send you any messages. If your account is public, they'll still be able to view it, but they won't show up on your followers list, and you won't be on their following list. If it's a spammer you're blocking, thanks! Twitter Support keeps an eye on block reports to see who's getting in trouble on Twitter.
Twitter offers many ways to post updates: from the web in the update box, from your phone, from your mobile web browser using m.twitter.com, or from any third party application made by the talented folks who've utilized our API.
The star is a way for you to mark an update as favorite. People can view your favorites, and you theirs, by clicking on Favorites on the profile page.
Yep! Put a Twitter widget on your blog or website... anything that accepts Javascript or HTML.
An @reply is a public message sent from one person to another, distinguished from normal updates by the @username prefix. If a message begins with @username, we collect it as an @reply. Reply publicly to any update on Twitter by using the @username format. Following is not necessary to reply to someone, and all @replies directed to you are visible in the Mentions tab on the Connect page. (Tweets with @username elsewhere in the Tweet are also collected in Mentions; Tweets starting with @username are @replies, and Tweets with @username elsewhere are considered mentions.) Please note that if your Tweets are protected, users who are not following you will not see your @replies or mentions.
Direct messages are personal messages sent from one Twitter person to another; they do not appear in the public timeline, like an @reply or mention. You can only send a direct message to a person who follows you. When you receive a direct message, we save it in your direct message inbox, accessible by clicking on the person icon and selecting Direct messages from the drop down. You can also set your email preferences to notify you by mail if you have a new message.
Nope. Once it's out there, you can't edit it. You can delete an update by clicking the trash icon on the right end of the update, but you can't make changes.
An @reply is a public message sent regardless of follow-ship that anyone can view (if your Tweets are public). A direct message can only be sent by someone you follow, and is a message that only the sender and recipient can view in their direct messages inbox.
A Retweet a re-posting of someone else's Tweet. Check out this great article on retweeting and how it works.
Sometimes you will see the initials RT in a Tweet. Sometimes users add RT somewhere in a Tweet to indicate that part of their Tweet includes something they're re-posting from another person's Tweet, sometimes with a comment of their own. This isn't an official Twitter command or feature.
The good news is they're not lost or gone! We have all your Tweets. The bad news is that we currently only allow you to see the 3200 most recent Tweets (this could also be construed as good news, as that number could be lower than 3200). We do not currently plan to change this limit, but we welcome your feedback - just send a mention to @feedback.
Uploading and sharing images on Twitter.com is easy! You can find step-by-step instructions and more FAQ here.
Yes, complete with documentation and an active developer group to help you with common API questions. You can find it at the bottom of your logged-in homepage, here.
Get more information here on what API access you may need, and how to request whitelisting.
No. We escape all HTML for security purposes. However, if you paste in a link that is less than 30 characters, we'll post it in its entirety. If it's longer than 30 characters, we'll convert it to a shorter URL.
Report spam by following Twitter's spam watch account, and sending us a direct message containing the username of the spammer. We encourage you to always block any spammers you find. Twitter's Safety team keeps an eye on block reports to see who's getting in trouble on Twitter.
Accounts are suspended for Terms of Service violations or spam investigation. Read more about this here.
Twitter's Terms of Service is posted on the website, and the Twitter Rules are posted in the Help Center.
Review our Terms of Service section to find out what constitutes a violation, and how to go about fixing a related problem.
Yes. Check the Something's Not Working section, read the Twitter Status Blog, or follow @support.
Check out our Help Center for more information!
Check out our Troubleshooting section for solutions to common problems.
