Ongoing broad public conversations on a national or lobal scale are the unique and differentiating aspect of Twitter and enable us to characterize a handful of unique uses for this channel. This enables them to assess social sentiment, establish benchmark attitudes, follow viral transmissions and measure market or message penetration. It also encourages brands to find and incent the active talkers and sharers in service to brand awareness, preference and purchase intent Twitter has 17 million active users, approximately seven percent of the US online population.