What’s a Twitter?
If you’re like most online consumers these days, it seems like every time you fire up your Explorer, Firefox or Safari web browser, there’s another oddly-named web site staring you in the face. Or, perhaps you’ve heard your kids talking about “tweeting” to their friends, your younger cohorts at the office giggling about a viral posting being passed around online or you’ve read yet another article lamenting the end of the common telephone call.

Twitter, one of a set of tools calls even more cryptically, microblogging, is fast becoming one of the must-have methods of staying in touch and in the loop online. But what exactly is it, why would you want to use it and what are the benefits?

The Shopping Mall
One of our favorite methods of explaining new online technologies and tools to the common man is to use the shopping mall analogy. In a shopping mall, you’re blitzed with messages coming at you from all sides, at all times and in a variety of ways.

Think of being on the Internet as walking through a shopping mall.

Still with us?
As you approach a shopping mall, you have to decide where to park and what entrance to go into. Those choices of how to enter the mall are synonymous with how you get onto the Internet: web surfing, e-mail, discussion groups, etc. Once you’re in the mall, you’re faced perhaps with public speakers (blogs), perfume spritzers (personalized, promotional e-mails) and people with clipboards (online surveys).

In our mall-is-the-Internet model, Twitter is like the overhead announcements you hear — they’re short messages, almost heard in the background, where occasionally you notice one that interests you and you pay attention to.

It’s all about sharing
So Twitter is an online tool (like a social network site, like Facebook or MySpace, but without the clutter and confusion) that allows you to connect with people you (and some you don’t), getting updates and contributing short messages about things that interest you, you’ve seen online or that you have a question about.

Another way to think of Twitter is that it’s a way to send short, text-based messages to a group of people, some who may answer, some who may not. In fact, Twitter is great for sharing between individuals, with little expectation (or pressure) that you need to respond.

So why would you want to join Twitter?
Well, let’s give some examples to better answer this question. For one thing, if you were connected to friends and family and at an event, like your kid’s sporting meet, or intermission at a play or during a musical concert, you could “tweet” (the act of sending a message on Twitter) out to your followers, telling them what’s going on.

On the other hand, if you were following a political figure or a company that makes a product or has a service you’re interested in, that person, company or organization you are following (so, you’re their “friend” or fan) could send short messages out to you. To continue our example, the politician could send out opinions about news items while the company or organization could send you (and anyone else following them) promotional offers or announcements.

Finally, if you’re looking to meet up with a group of friends who are following you on Twitter (and they, in turn, are all following each other), meeting up for a night out gets much easier as all you need to do is send out where you’re all meeting, whether you’ll be late and any other details the collective group as a whole may be interested in. If you’ve ever found yourself in this situation, making phone call after phone call to update everyone and coordinate plans, you can easily see the benefits of Twitter.

The details
So, how is Twitter different than say, e-mail, text messaging or making a phone call? Well, for one thing, it’s all text based — that means messages are quick and short. Speaking of short, you’re limited to 140 characters, so get used to being brief.

Also, you can get the messages on a variety of things — your phone (as a text message), your e-mail, at the Twitter.com web site (once you’ve signed into your account) and even on your smartphone using an easy, free application or widget you download.

Signing Up
First, it’s free. Second, it takes like 30 seconds. Max.

Joining Twitter is easy and takes but a few seconds. Pick a name, a password and fill-in your e-mail address and tweet away!

Simply go online with any web browser, visit Twitter.com, click the “Get Started-Join!” button and you’ll be done in no time. You pick a username (be clever here — this is how the world will soon know you), a password (make it memorable), enter your e-mail address (believe me — you’ll forget your password!) and then type in the squiggly letter you’ll see online (it’s so the web site knows you’re human — don’t ask).

That’s it. You’re online.

Next, you can have Twitter access your online address books (Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail, etc.) to see which of the contact you already have are online. You can click the “skip >” button if you don’t have an address book or would like to do this later.

After that, a great way to search for friends and start following other Twitter users is to click on the “Find People” text link up in the upper, right hand corner of your Twitter home page. Then, you can invite people from other networks (this is that online address book again), invite people by entering their e-mail address or using the Search feature — just enter someone’s name or the name of a company or organization you’re interested in.

Need someone to follow? Once you sign in, search for PulteChicago -- instant friend!

Summary
So, you’ve signed up on Twitter and you’re wondering what’s next. First, follow a few friends, including us! Next, try a tweet or two — maybe something you’ve read online or an interesting piece of information or trivia. Don’t worry if no one is following you — Twitter Power Users can search for conversations and postings, so you’ll soon have others who find your postings interesting giving you a look.

The funny thing about following people on Twitter is that they tend to follow you back. In that sense, it’s a great way to make casual connections. We’ve even seen the followers of those we are following (stay with us here) follow us back. That’s viral networking at its best and, well, just plain cool.

Join us on Facebook and become part of the Autumn Creek community.

Whether your a heavy-duty social networking (hey, no Super Pokes!), a casual user who like to keep in touch with family and friends or just curious as to what this whole Facebook thing is, we’re ready to be your Friend!

If you’re already a Facebook follower, head on over to our Friends of Pulte Homes’ Autumn Creek Group. There, you can hook up with other online folks who are fans of our community, participate in discussions, share some of your favorite things about Yorkville and just see who else is online that you may know.

Not a member of Facebook, one of the fastest growing online social networks? Not a problem. Joining is easy, takes just a few minutes and in no time you’ll be addicted to checking up on people you know, letting everyone see what you’re doing throughout the day, posting pictures and getting connected with new friends.

Come join us on Facebook and be a part of the Pulte (online) community!