Social networking is one of the favorite uses of the internet for many people all around the globe. Twitter, the micro blogging site, is seeing its popularity boom right now as a sort of cross between social networking and a news site.

InformationWeek reports that Twitter grew 131% since February according to ComScore Media Matrix data. That growth percentage represents an increase of more than 5 million visitors. ComScore analyst Andrew Lipsman wrote in a blog post, "There may certainly be some merit to that [media coverage contributing to the growth of Twitter]. It seems you can't get through a typical newscast anymore without some mention of Twitter."

Lipsman believes that the wide media attention that Twitter is receiving is at least in part due to media attention. He cites Newt Gingrich using Twitter to criticize how President Obama handled the Somali pirate crisis as examples.

Even large and mainstream news sources like CNN are using Twitter to get news out to avid news readers. According to Lipsman, Twitter users are news junkies that visit top news site an average of three times more often than the typical person does. That means that the attraction of avid news followers to twitter is added to the draw that the massive coverage of the service in the media is getting.

Lipsman said, "Like it or not, Twitter is quickly revolutionizing the way our entire news ecosystem operates, from journalist to consumer, and blurring the lines in between." Everything isn't rosy for Twitter and some Twitter users though. With the massive attention that the service gets in the media and its raging popularity, the site has become the target of cybercriminals.

Twitter was hit with a virus recently that sent spam Tweets and many Twitter users are finding that Tweets are read by a much larger audience than they intended and some have lost jobs because of Twitter comments. One prime example is the so-called "Fatty Paycheck" incident where a woman offered a job at Cisco posted a Tweet saying she would hate the work, which was found by a Cisco employee.