Chapter 3. Microblogs – Cloning Twitter

One of the most successful new Internet services of recent times is Twitter. Since its launch it has exploded from niche usage to usage by the general populace, with celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey, Britney Spears, and Shaquille O'Neal, and politicians such as Barack Obama and Al Gore jumping into it.

With so much Twitter coverage sometimes it's difficult to remember that Twitter itself is not unique but is one service in a group of up and coming Internet services generally called microblogs. In this chapter we look at this Internet phenomenon, dissect it and as before, clone its main features.