10 Kind of Tweeters You Probably Know

Everyone and his cousin is on twitter these days. Twitter addiction is now officially a condition recognized by the WHO. (Not really, but by the who's who of the connected world, anyway.) To those still oblivious to this mini-universe of twitter, explaining what Twitter is more difficult than explaining colours to a blind person.

But if you're one of the discerned people of the internet who has found their way into the microcosmic world of twitter, you would instantly be able to put a handle to most of the tweeple-kinds described below.

This isn't an exhaustive list and mostly all seasoned tweeps are a blend of more than one category and mostly a little bit of all, but here's the broad classification. So, here's a little step towards...knowing your twitter neighbour!

Taking it with a pinch of salt preferably with some popcorn is highly recommended.

1. The Funny bones:

Everyone wants to be like them, most try hard while some actually are. Consider yourself arrived if you're funny enough to have a follower count like that of a Balkan country's population and your tweets get retweeted like the Mexican wave, despite being mostly from anonymous users.

Expect to see them put a funny spin on everything, right from their bio to an event seconds after it's happened. Their tweets will mostly leave you ROTFL and by that I mean looking at your screen, chuckling away looking like an idiot to people around you, who are obviously not on twitter yet and show up as facebook statuses or BBM forwards days later.

2. The 140 character novelists:

Their tweets sound like works of micro-novelists. Explaining the exact shade of loneliness and the dance of the rainfall are some of their superpowers. There's always a 'he' saying something, a 'she' with a wittier repartee. Their smooth words could soothe you on a cold day, send warm fuzzy feelings going on the timeline while the more extreme ones can you make you rip your eyes out at the emo-ness of it all.

3. The Help Centre:

They're the good samaritans or the knowledge-dispensers of Twitter! Expect to see on their TL: A generous mix of " Please RT" tweets- dedicatedly retweeted, painstakingly drafted tweets to include links to great articles, job openings and generally helpful or good to know information.

4. The live tweeters:

Who needs a TV when you have a blow-by-blow account of all the action right on your TL? Be it football, cricket or even a debate on TV, the live tweeters tap away, with an eye on the TV screen, the other on their twitter screen, keeping you posted about every goal, missed or taken, expert analysis, sledging and curses. Heaven save your TL if you are not a football/ fan.

5. The retweet machine:

6. The marketers:

Twitter is their secretary, their advertising agency and their publicist. They can sell you toothbrushes to diamonds in 140 characters or less. If they're photographers, expect to see every aperture action synced to their tweet.

The pluggers are not limited to people who actually have a profession outside of twitter but ones that plug their own twitter too with frequent rehashing of their popular tweets and links to their favstar account. ( Hall of fame of good tweets)

7. The lurkers/ Orkut-returns:

8. The personal diary:

Instead of maintaining a diary and wasting paper to record their everyday activities, trials and travails, they just....tweet it. "Just had a salmon sandwich.", "Going to the gym". The lazier ones just auto-sync their account with their foursquare keeping their followers updated about their whereabouts should they need to be spied on or better still 'twitpic' it.

Their twitter is their sun that revolves around them. The lurkers feed on them and the n00bs hold on to their tweets like the Holy grail.

9. The n00bs:

They have a perpetual "Where am I? Why am I here" syndrome? Usually from first few weeks or depending on how quickly you catch up, could last upto a lifetime into twitter. Classic signs to spot a n00b? Usually full name in handle and name, follow more than have followers, reply and/or RT to pretty much every mention.

10. The real world celebs:

Like it, love or, or have no idea what it is and why it is, the power of twitter is here to stay and the sooner you catch up, the more looped in you are with the digital movers & shakers. What's your tweeting style?

Featured Image By: Rosaura Ochoa