I’ve never tweeted, and was just kind of forced into Facebook. Still haven’t seen much value to it, other than an easy way of maintaining a web page.
So, what is the deal with the @ and # signs all over those messages?
Twitter has a limit of 140 characters per message, so a lot of shorthand has to be used.
@ immediately followed a username is a "tweet" addressed to that specific user. For example @markomally XXXXX XX XXXXX = a tweet addressed specifically to user markomally.
@markomalley @gitmo XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX is a tweet addressed to both user markomalley and user gitmo
# is called a "hashtag" -- it is used to identify a common interest or a common group of users you want to see the "tweet"
For example, #tcot = "top conservatives on twitter" #teaparty = "Tea partiers on twitter" (Of course, that can be and is often abused by users who wish to spam those groups).
Where this is useful is you can use Twitter's searching function to pick out "tweets" rapidly (for example, I can look for all tweets addressed to me by searching on "@markomalley"; I can look for all tweets addressed to conservatives by searching on #tcot; I can look for tweets aimed toward catholics by searching on #catholic.
A couple of other things you would see are:
Note: there are a HUGE number of netroots libs on Twitter and that, in of itself, can be frustrating. But there are a number of conservatives on it as well.
I use it a lot to follow newsfeeds, reporters, and politicians. Generally, news outlets will tweet something the instant it is published. Likewise, reporters and politicians use it to get messages out in an unfiltered fashion.
It must be used with extreme caution, but as long as you aren't too naive, it is useful.