"The Twitter"

I know that I am years behind when it comes to this, but I finally got me a "Genu-wine" Twitter account. And now I am totally lost.

**Random Thought: I love the movie trailer where Betty White says, "I'm also on the Twitter." Adding the "the" just cracks me up.

So, I am asking for Twitter Tutorials. Can anyone help me out?

Like,
What does the # mean?
How do I find people to follow?
How do you make heads or tails of your homepage with all those random quotes?
How do you find stuff about writing?

I may be better off just reading Jane Friedman's Best Tweets for Writers once a week . . .