Dear Twitterphiles …

Twitter is wonderful. I don't use it, but it keeps those people who think everyone wants to know their every tiniest thought from calling us and boring us.

I'm a twitterer and I just love it! Gives me a forum to share my ideas, thoughts, knowledge and UGH! moments to anyone that will listen. I like the fact that no response is necessary nor is one warranted. I can follow the tweets at anytime and ask questions about complex parenting issues. I personally only follow those that I have interest with. I don't care about numbers as much as I care about content. I am a 31-year-old black woman and SINGLE parent to 3. Twitter gives me a voice and a way to help others understand my world (if they choose to follow our journey). Besides, how else could I air my dirty laundry to America? Follow me on twitter @sparkwisdom

I don't get any of it either. What's wrong with a phone call or email?

Ok heres my two cents: I don't Tweet, visited Facebook only once and have never seen Myspace. Do I socialize with my friends (real friends) yes. I have a blog that I share with friends and family only but none of my friends has the time to take on yet another mode of communication when we already have face-to-face meetings, telephones, email, txt and blogs to read. Not to mention that we all go to school and work full time. I guess its just that I place more value on the time I actually spend with my friends cause I could care less about why any of them would suddenly find it strange that they feel the need to wonder what the odd smell coming from the fridge might possibly be, yet they still ignore it.

Value is person specific. The fact that we don???t understand what value others get from social web apps is part of the paradigm of social software. The key is that each person has their own social lives, their own social circle, and thus their own social values. What is important to their social life will almost certainly be unimportant to us because we have our own to worry about. I think the two things which most people, including the author, miss about how to get value out of Twitter are:
(1) Subscribe to the streams of a group of people that you care about (either for personal or professional reasons). That is a critical characteristic of Twitter: it???s selective, in that users choose whether to follow me. And it???s social, in that I choose whom to follow. So I???m not publishing to the big, wide world. I???m talking with my friends, family and acquaintances. With Twitter, I try to carefully create a network that is personally relevant and meaningful to ME.
(2) To enjoy you need to understand what makes Twitter great - INTERACTION. Twitter allows a magazine reader to interactive directly with a columnist (hint, hint). Really, the key thing about Twitter is to interact with people. Don???t worry about the ???big??? names - if you can build your own network of people that like what YOU are doing then you can start to enjoy the benefits of Twitter.

I certainly understand how you feel about Twitter. I've been doing it for about five months and I still don't really understand it. I just occasionally post information about my business, internet groups I've started, and my newsletter. otherwise I do not see a reason to tell everyone what I'm doing minute by minute. I pretty much agree with you. I do enjoy, when I have a spare moment, reading some of the information from others - it can be quite useful. they're actually some interesting and educational tweets. But just like you I'm still baffled by the whole thing.
Cherokee Billie
www.cherokeebillie.com

Wow. how interesting. I don't see it this way at all, but then I am not a social Twitterer. I use it for customer service, among other things. I think it is quite brilliant for realtime responses, and with the advent of TweetDeck, those responses are much easier to find.

Don't use Twitter if you think it's a waste of your time. It would certainly be a waste of MY time to read Tweets from Twits.

love yr article! i think there truly is a fundamental difference - not disparity - but difference in how people of different races, cultures, etc. think and communicate. twittering to me, a Black woman, also seems yet another feeble attempt to make the mundane and normal, surreal and profound. while i do feel that life with all of its parameters is surreal and profound, not everything each individual does within the arena of life is equally profound. and then these arcane linguistical abbreviations - puleez! i stopped trying to figure them out when i realized i was spending too much time learning how to mispell words instead of the other way around. maybe i am secretly annoyed and jealous of not having enough luxurious free time to immerse myself in this techno community but i am a child of the '60s so there is always that Big Brother warning floating around in my head. so i tread carefully - i don't want to throw away my thesaurae or well thumbed books - i like the smell of paper - like in waterworld - and when i read something from someone i want to sit down and take my tme and READ something. BUT having said all that - it's fun, it's sweet seeing your conversations and everyone else's response in real time - and, for real, do you think POTUS can follow me too?? LOL!!!

Tools to communicate with others are a great thing. Not everyone wants or needs to use the same tools. Some people find Twitter useful, others don't. I have blogs, had a MySpace profile for 2 years before I abandoned it, use IM, text on my cell and have enrolled on dating sites from time to time. All this so that I can communicate with others for my own personal reasons. Not all the tools I tried I liked. Some were fun at first but got stale fast (MySpace and match.com for example) The good news is we are free to pick our tools for communication. I hope you use your tools wisely and for all their worth and enjoy life. Cheers!

I love this article. I created a Twitter account and could not think of one Tweet-worthy, 140 character line to post unless I made up a lie. Otherwise I'd be tweeting about work, grocery shopping, my daughter or what I happen to be eating. Who gives a crap about that stuff? It's not a blog, so everything is a headline. Headlines are supposed to be exciting, "Long Line in Aisle 5 Makes Woman Resort to Take-Out, Again!"

Loved your article. I too have been trying to figure out twitter and yes, our dear POTUS is following me too. I, too, have decided that twitter is just not the best use of my time at this point in life. maybe in a few years (if its still around) i'll try it again.

Thank you! I feel the same way; I want to twitter but no one is following me except Barack Obama and David Shuster. If i had some real people following me on twitter I think I'd be more into it. For now I just read the tweets of the people who I follow. I'm playing a game where I'm the only participant.

Well, you know what , hon? You just might be too cool for Twitter. Certainly sounds to me like that is the case. It's probably best that you just forgo it all together. You're exactly right: nobody will miss you.

That was hilarious! And I totally agree...Twitter is a complete waste of time.

After all that.. I have but one thing to say... it's Dunkin' Donuts. .. not doughnuts.

Out of all that.. I have but one thing to say... It's Dunkin' Donuts.

Facebook's new upgrades have ruined it. I want my social networks to be simple and to the point, which twitter can be if you are competent enough to figure it out. If you don't want "the world" to know you're clumsy and an idiot then don't use twitter. If you really don't give a damn and like to make others laugh at your own expense then twitter away.