Twitter vs Email
Twitter is one of the most popular ways of getting your thoughts across. Another method, which predated twitter, is email. The two are very similar in objectives but are very different in execution. Firstly, twitter is a service that is offered by one company. People who use twitter belong to the same group and can communicate with each other. On the other hand, email is a group of technologies that facilitates the transmittal and retrieval of messages. People are free to have their own set-ups and aside from the globally used email over the Internet, there are also implementations of email that is localized to a certain company or group’s Intranet or local network.
Twitter is very well known for having a character limit of 140 characters. People have created acronyms and abbreviations in order to squeeze as much thought within that 140 character limit. Emails do not have a character limit but certain implementations can have a maximum size of the entire email. This is big enough that there is no problem in typing out the entire message correctly and according to the rules of the language used. Another advantage of email over twitter is the ability to attach files. The files attached are sent to the recipient along with the message. Although there are ways to link photos with twitter, the actual file is not sent along with the message.
With respect to the transmission, most twitter messages are broadcasted to all those who are subscribed to the senders; commonly referred to a followers. There is a way to send messages individually but it is more of the exception rather than the norm. With emails, the structure closely follows that of letters. The sender should specify the address of each person he intends to send the email to; it is also possible to specify who should be furnished copies of the email.
The rise of twitter is in correlation with the rise of social media. People use twitter to quickly get the word out to everybody. Email was invented as a cheaper and faster alternative to conventional mail. Because of that email is more synonymous to interpersonal communication. Email is also a basic need for companies as it facilitates cooperation between employees.
Summary:
1. Twitter is a service provided by one company while email can be implemented by any company or individual
2. Each twitter message is limited to 140 characters while email messages can be very long
3. Twitter messages cannot contain attachments while email messages can
4. Twitter messages are usually broadcasted while email messages have specific recipients
5. Twitter is used for social networking while emails is used for interpersonal and business communications