The Inside Guide to London is on Twitter and usually only talks about London on the site. However, this article is about the Inside Guide's experience of using Twitter. It may help you cut through the chaff, if you're a new user. (If you've been using it for a while, you could take a look at the newer article - Advanced Twitter. Which covers lists hashtags and the Twitter search engine in more detail).

Within every society, people naturally migrate to type. In ours we have tools to measure and slot people into type-boxes, like Myers-Briggs. These tests genetically link back to Desmond Morris's groundbreaking book 'The Naked Ape' (it's a trilogy, if we're going to split hairs). I recommend reading the three books if you want to snigger at bus queues and on the Tube, when observing human beings helplessly reverting to type in group situations.

This is a guide for new users of Twitter, and should provide a simple overview of Twitter 'types' in the community. The kind of guide that Desmond Morris would write, if he was remotely interested. Remember, this is a guide - and there are exceptions.

What is Twitter - in a nutshell?

Imagine a large room full of people. They naturally cluster into groups. If you're in a group where the conversation is two way - you are 'following' and have 'followers', in Twitter terminology. Other groups will be like lectures, with one person pontificating (they might even be gripping their lapels) and the others listening or throwing small morsels of praise back (think celeb - where you're following, but they're not following you back).

Some of these groups will be about business interests, some will be about pastimes and passions and some will be chat amongst people who've met online, or are friends in real life. An RT (Retweet) is like a popular conversation passing from group to group. Trending topics (which list the most popular # Hashtags) are like tannoy anouncements, which can break news very quickly (especially if someone's died) - but in actuality, just like real life, many people ignore them. They also have another very important use, but that's more of an advanced topic and will get an article all to itself. The above, and the fact that messages are limited to 140 characters - is essentially Twitter in a nutshell.

Crucially you can embed a [shortened] link in a Tweet, which can point to anything else - blog, website, picture, video, joke, cam, etc. So the Tweet becomes a headline-style promotional device. You want people to look at something you've created; the more the better in most circumstances (hence why you build up followers). The most important part however, is to build a network with similar interests. Imagine the difference between a conference of iPhone developers and users, all chattering feverishly. All on-topic and passing information freely, in a large hotel conference room with chilled drinks and bar snacks. Compare that information flow to someone bellowing at passers by, on a busy junction of Oxford Street outside. Yes, the number of people the person outside is reaching is much higher, but crucially, 99% are not interested in what he's saying. Basically, on Twitter you want a network with mutual interests who want to follow your links, information and musings. Not a network with thousands of people, too busy talking to listen.

Why is Twitter popular with website owners? (Skip on, if you're only interested in Twitter)

If you own a website, it will take years to move up the Google rankings, unless you pay for Adwords. In 1999 when Google hit the search engine scene, whatever you typed in, a portion of the results would be spam and most of it - porn spam. A dozen little browser windows would automatically open at work, so surreptitious browsing was a risky business. Google killed that practice with its PageRank system. It listed its results (SERPs) based on the 'quality' of the sites which link to the displayed site. Spamming was dealt a severe body blow. So websites began linking to each other carefully with PageRank and 'domain trust' growing together (PageRank 'trickles' across the links like water through a pipe, you see). The trouble is, 5 years ago Google introduced a new type of link, the 'nofollow', to stop people adding links in the comments section of blogs. The 'nofollow' does not pass PageRank and search engines usually ignore it, so all 'old' sites sculpt their PageRank (by using nofollow links to external sources), and new ones find it increasingly difficult to earn any PageRank (Twitter links for example, are 'nofollow). Google unwittingly released a timebomb.