Is Twitter just for twits?

Twitter - it's all the rage these days, but I'm still trying to figure out if/how it would add value to my life or my work. It seems it's a monumental waste of time following a bunch of inane tweets. The video "Twitter Whore" (see above) does a good job of summarizing my perspective on the kind of information you get from Twitter.

However... the jury's still out. It is a new form of communication that probably should not be quickly dismissed. I did find some value recently in verifying that YouTube was temporarily down (and that it was not just my computer). This information was available on twitter within seconds of the outage, while not available through any other outlet. This could be quite handy in an emergency. Of course, not too handy is the emergency is Twitter being down for the nth time ;-)

What do you think? Is twitter just for twits or is there widespread usefulness?

P.S. Need more Lisa Nova, here's Twitter Whore part 2

Comments

[Scott Hardigree]

For me it's proven to be something of a viral marketing platform.

But perhaps the greatest value I've found in Twitter are recommendations of new peer-reviewed social media tools that I receive from those I "follow", tools that I'd never find searching.

http://twitter.com/indiescott

[Joseph Pych]

That's a good idea. Thanks for your feedback!