terça-feira, 31 de agosto de 2010

Time to Twitter part II



Level: Basic
Source: Speak
British Standar Accent

Every year there is a new internet phenomenon. In the past we have seen e-mail, Google, Messenger, Wikipedia, Youtube, MySpace and Facebook. The latest sensation is called Twitter. It is very popular in the United States, Britain and Japan. Twitter is a "Social networking system" like MySpace and Facebook. The difference is that you write messages with a maximum of 140 characters. In your message you answer one simple question: "What are you doing now?"

A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT

Twitter is popular with "normal people," but it also popular with celebrities who use it as a blog. Barack Obama, John McCain, Gordon Brown and Britney Spears all like Twitter. The simple format makes twitter esay to use from a mobile phone. Many guests at Obama's presidential inauguration wrote Twitter messages during the ceremony. People watching on televison complained about this.

A BIRD LANGUAGE

A Twitter message is called a tweet. "Tweet" is literally the sound of a small bird: the symbol on the twitter website is a bird on a tree. The word twitter also refers to the sound of birds singing. Humans can also twitter when they talk quickly and nervously. In British English a twit is a stupid person.  

Twitter may not be an intelligent word, but it is the new digital activity. It is replacing "chat" as the most important form of communication. Other twitter words include follower, a person who "follow" a twitter's old messages: re-twit, which means sending another person's message; a twitterati, which describes the people who use twitter. Twitter is based in Silicon Valley, California. Will Twitter replace Facebook? Who knows. According to the British newspaper The Financial Times, last year Facebook offered to buy Twitter for $ 500 million. Twitter said no.



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