tweetheart

A Twitter user who is popular with others.

My colleague in the US, Heather Hopkins recently covered the blaze of publicity around Oprah Winfrey starting to tweet and its immediate impact on Twitter’s US share of visits. In Australia the influences seem to be broader than America’s new 'tweetheart’.

When Vanity Fair published a story earlier this year on a group of all-American, all-white "tweethearts," the real Twitterati took the magazine to task for ignoring a growing force on Twitter: African-Americans.

A Twitter user who is one's personal friend or within one's broader social networking circle.

"I liked the idea of people who don't really know each other except through short messages getting together and meeting for the first time, putting a face to a name, and also telling people how much I enjoy reading their updates," said Tim Lara, Twitter user @timothydanger. "Meeting new tweeps was nice too. I gained a couple of tweethearts since then and enjoy the banter. (My twitter is never serious)."

"Just got the imaging for my new fragrance Radiance and thought I'd share it with all my tweethearts," she wrote.

A Twitter user with whom one is infatuated or involved romantically, especially if they were first met through the service.

"I actually met my girlfriend on Twitter," says Verdino, who has been tweeting for the last two years. "We call ourselves tweethearts."

When I got to my car and dialed up my friend to tell her about the tweetheart I just met she informed me she just got a tweet from Lindsay Lohan.