Thesis full text PDF (in Italian) - Politecnico di Milano

ü Instant messagingü Create, share and join groupsü Send private messages to others profilesü Create, invite and join eventsü Set different privacy levelsü Search user by name or email addressü Connection through a mobile device2.2.2 Twitter Twitter is an online social network based on micro blogging. Since its creation in2006, it has gained popularity worldwide and currently has more than 160millions of users 4 , mainly distributed in USA and Australia, less in Europe [9].It enables its users to send and read other users' messages called “tweets”, textbasedposts of up to 140 characters, displayed on the user's profile page.Posted messages are publically visible by default, however senders can decide torestrict the delivery to their friends list.Users may also subscribe to other tweets author putting them into their“following” list; subscribers are known as “followers”.An important feature provided by Twitter, in order to establish the authenticity ofwell known account, is the “verified badge”, an icon that is associated to all theverifies accounts, so users can trust that a legitimate source is authoring theirtweets.4 Information source: http://sites.google.com/a/twitter.com/twitter-press-site/metrics (10/2010)16