Comments on: What Makes Twitter So Valuable?

By: James Farrar

James Farrar — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 13:35:21 +0000

I think I am starting to get it. there is a lot of white noise BUT also there are interesting and useful snip its and links flying around and good commentary. This is often valuable stuff that would end up on the edit room floor before getting to a blog post AND it’s highly concentrated. It was good to get some of the live tweets from Davos for example from Loic.

I am ambivalent about it but I am thinking I would now miss it if it was removed from the landscape

By: Laura "Pistachio" Fitton

Laura "Pistachio" Fitton — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 03:16:00 +0000

I have so. many. answers. to this question. I promise to ping you each time I finish a post on one of them, OK? Thanks for the link, and great seeing you again in Boston recently.

By: Stephen Collins

Stephen Collins — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 20:32:17 +0000

Mike, I agree with Susan that there is a critical mass of following/followers before Twitter becomes useful. For me, it was about 30-50 of each.

I was actually having this conversation last week (on Twitter) and pointed a few folks at a post I did early last year where I speculated that Twitter wasn’t actually useful. How wrong I was.

By the time I came across to the US for Office 2.0 (where we met, BTW), it was a critical tool for me - I was able to build on already established relationships that I had fostered, understand people’s motivations and know what they were up to, all thanks to Twitter.

For me it’s a virtual water cooler, source of news and touch point in my online and offline life.

By: Susan Getgood

Susan Getgood — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 13:47:21 +0000

I pondered the very same questions at length — check my archives !

I don’t have nearly the number of followers that Tris and Laura have, nor do I spend as much time there. I look at it like a river of interesting conversation, dialogue, information among people of like mind. I dip in pretty much every day, briefly, and sometimes I have more time and actually go swimming

At first, the 140 character limit frustrated me, but now I appreciate it, as I think it is what makes Twitter work for so many of us, where Forums and Message Boards often don’t.

In a forum, you have to be there everyday, and read everything in order to really be a member of the club. Miss a day, you miss the plot.

With Twitter though it is just impossible to miss that much. And because everyone else is dipping out and in just like you, all you have to do is ask. Someone is bound to explain.

By: Tris Hussey

Tris Hussey — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 18:22:49 +0000

Followed.

For me Twitter is both stream of communication and discussion and a source of news.

That said, I do have to ignore it for stretches to get “real work” done.

Right now I have almost 800 followers (wow!) and following about 1,000. Lots of information and I know I miss a lot. However some of the discussions, in 140 char or less, have been truly thought provoking!