Why don’t they just use the more generic “messaged”?
Because they didn’t want to? Why don’t you use the more generic “messaged” instead of faxed, emailed, texted, shouted at, memoed, or skywrote? Because you can convey not just that information was transferred but the medium of that transference in one fell swoop. Tweeted is just how the general consciousness has decided to do that in reference to Twitter.
But fax, email, text are not the name of a product. Aren’t there other websites that do exactly what Twitter does? Do we still use “tweet” in reference to those? I really have no clue.
Using the verb “tweeted” just sounds wrong, like referring to all sodas as “cokes”.
There are a few websites like twitter but they’re no nearly as well known and their names aren’t as easily verbed as twitter is. Remember twitter’s mascot is a bird and the idea is that you and your friends are sending short messages as if you are a flock of birds twittering. It’s not far to leap to tweets for individual messages.
If it a problem for you, feel free not to use it but they’re not doing anything wrong. If you and 50 people are discussing sodas and they all use coke as a catch-all term and you don’t, who’s wrong?
I’ve been imagining “twit-ter’d” and “twee-ted” as each having two syllables. How do you pronounce them?
Yeah, that’s gonna catch on.
That has always been the verb used, ever since the start of Twitter. I remember listening to a podcast back in the middle of 2006 when it was just getting started and one of the guys on the podcast getting made fun of for tweeting.
In that case, can we call the person who tweets a twit?
You could. It’s not very nice, though.
Because messaging implies that it was written to a specific recipient. A tweet
Also, messaging is not a generic term–it’s a shortened form of “private messaging”, meaning something other than email, chatting, calling, or writing, and is actually a fairly new concept. Before, we had always indicated what medium we used to make the communication. Even today people will use specific terms: “YMed” for using Yahoo! Messenger, “AIMed” for using AOL, and I’ve even heard “MSNed” (though never GMed or Google chatted).
I always considered “tweet” to be a generic term as well, unlike verbing Twitter would be. If you publish a short message to the world in an electronic form, I would still call it tweeting. The word just conjures up the idea of a short message made rather quickly. It’s also a smart move for Twitter, as it reduces the need to use the name for anything other than the site/service, thus helping avoid genericization.
I’m not sure of a better way to explain where a conversation occurred.
Jane tweeted she loves fresh pasta.
We instantly know the context of that statement. She didn’t tell her best friend. She didn’t roll over in bed and tell her lover. Jane sent a tweet.
Now a bigger question. Should we put this in quotes like a spoken statement?
Jane tweeted, “she loves fresh pasta.”
I’m not sure how this is handled.
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You only put in quotes what they actually said. It would be: Jane tweeted “Fresh pasta is besta!” just like you would for any other direct quote.
It is an annoying cutesy word - twee, even - but there’s no better alternative.
Well, that accounts for all the Angry Birds.
Maybe that explains why I like that game so much. 
BTW, in the same vein, I find Best Buy’s Twitter-based customer support name to be ten times more annoying than “tweet”: Twelp Squad.
Twelp? Seriously? Every time I see it, my mind replaces “Twelp” with “Twerp.”
Don’t much like “Yelp” either, but that’s a different subject and not really worthy of further discussion. 
Swelp me God, that sounds stupid!
When Google was getting popular it drove me insane to hear people using it as a verb.
I got used to it and have totally gone darkside, I google shit left, right, and center. The appeal of Twitter still escapes me, this discussion might be the most entertaining thing about Twitter thus far.
I don’t like “Tweet” for sending messages and I especially can’t stand people using “Google” as a verb. It makes as much sense to say “I Yahooed for directions”. I can’t imagine the looks I’d get for saying that and “I Googled directions” sounds just as bad.
[music]Take a twitter from the birds
If you’ve 140 words
Tweet, tweet tweet, tweet tweet.[/music]