Practicum: Twitter

Over this past semester, I have become incredibly familiar with Twitter. I went from only knowing what I knew about it from the media, to interacting with the site on almost a daily basis. However, one issue that I realized that I have not yet discussed on the blog is that of access. While it is free for anyone with Internet access to visit and become a member of Twitter, in order to really engage and participate in the site, one needs to have a smart phone, or some mobile device that can support the Twitter application. At various points during the semester, I found myself thinking, "If I did not have my blackberry, I don't know how I would do this project". So while Twitter's membership has increased greatly in the past year, we must still be concerned with the issue of access. Not everyone has the means to afford a smart phone, or even Internet access for that matter. Because a smart phone makes using Twitter so much more practical and enjoyable, I would argue that Twitter faces greater challenges regarding access than other social networking sites, such as Facebook, which are primarily accessed on the computer. Perhaps Twitter will become even more mainstream when all cellular phones have the capability of supporting Twitter.