As if you were talking to a 6 year old, can someone explain what "Twitter" is and how can it benefit me as a iPhone user.

its a fun place where mommy can learn new things.

If they reply "can I go"

Say "its a grown up place"

Twitter is a website. People who sign up for twitter accounts get their own twitter web page, and they can post little snippets of information (one-sentence long, more or less) on that page. They can also sign up for their friends' twitter web pages, so that they can see all the snippets that they and their friends are posting. If you have friends who use Twitter, it can be a fun way to see what everyone's doing and communicate back and forth. Sort of like a big IM chat that never ends, but where nothing requires an immediate or direct response.

If you don't have friends who use Twitter, and you don't use it on your computer, you probably don't want to use it on your iPhone, either.

But if you wanted to stay in touch with people on Twitter, you could access it on your iPhone quite easily, and you could be in touch on the go. You could also use Twitter to take random notes on your iPhone, if you wanted to remind yourself of something and didn't care if it was public.

Phew.

P.S. Hi sferik

It's a way to put whatever you happen to be doing at the moment on the Internet for your friends to see.

It can benefit you by being able to see what your friends are doing. Maybe they're across the street from you and you can meet up unexpectedly (but not entirely coincidentally).

Hi Bob.

As Bob notes, you can use it to post just about any short message on the Internet, but the original stated purpose (and the way many people use it today) was to broadcast what you're doing.

It has proved useful in minor emergencies (like power outages) to see how widespread the problem is and maintain basic communication.

iRovr.com is a similar site built primarily for iPhone users... you can post what you're doing, links to web pages, photos, videos, and even what iTunes is playing. Other users can comment publicly or privately. Some people already know each other, and new friendships are being formed. It's been my first foray into a social site, and it's been fun!

Oh wow, I totaly misunderstood the question. I thought you meant you were trying to explain what it is to a six year old. Sorry!

Twitter is a company that asks - What are you doing? - and they share your answers with anyone else who wants to know. You can answer the question anytime you want, as often as you want.

You answer the question through your cellphone, the Twitter website, or chat. People who want to get your answers receive them also by cellphone, website, or chat.

If you find someone interesting in Twitter, you can also 'follow' them to get their answers.

Each answer can be at most 140 characters long.

Twitter doesn't care what kind of cellphone you have, so it doesn't matter whether or not you use an iPhone. However, iPhone users can use a website called PocketTweets to make using Twitter on an iPhone easier.