Communication is clearly the life blood of any trading organisation, you only have to ask anyone in the city to realise this. They need to be one step ahead of the game in many respects and be tightly connected to the latest news. This information tends to come from a great deal of sources, including mediums such as press releases, business statements, cable news channels and many more. There is however an ever-increasing demand for information to be supplied and received faster and more readily. The social media platform Twitter is now a tool that is being used by many traders to keep up with business knowledge according to the National Australia Bank (NAB).

Twitter is a micro-blog tool that works by people uploading ‘tweets’ which are of 160 characters or less. This is something that traders really like about the site as it forces posts to be concise and avoid waffle. Users within a certain niche, such as the obstruction light sector, can follow other Twitter members who they want to receive updates from, and can themselves be followed. In the modern world of city trading where companies world in global markets, people from various different countries, sectors and time zones need to have easy communication channels. Twitter allows groups of people from various sectors such as the media, banking and business to alert each other of the latest updates or discuss predicted market trends.

Because there is a function that allows users to send and receive private messages via Twitter, some parties believe that it could possible used for insider trading. Although supporters such as this multicore cables business are quick to point out that this was always possible via email and the real power comes from the ability to alert hundreds of thousands of people publically, which of course can be monitored for underhanded dealings if necessary