It took me a while to understand Twitter. I initially thought I had to come up with brilliant observations in 140 characters, and Twitter didn't work for me because that's not me. I knew I didn't want to just chronicle my mundane daily activities as some other folks were doing. So what exactly was the point of Twitter?
Eventually, I realized that Twitter is just another blogging tool (sometimes called a microblog). It's different from other blogging services in its frustratingly restrictive 140 character limit and the fact that most readers read posts in Twitter's interface rather than via an RSS reader. But it's just a blogging tool, no more and no less. As such, it can be used to publish really interesting content or horribly uninteresting content. You decide.
In my case, I embraced Twitter as a tool to aggregate an audience of people interested in the same topics as me. I repost headlines from my blogs, post links to substantive articles I don't think my readers have seen before, and leaven that with occasional personal anecdotes. I link my Twitter feed to my Facebook status so that the content is the same in both. The way I see it, people who share my interests can read me in Twitter, in Facebook or via an RSS feed. They decide. It's all good.
Twitter has all kinds of problems. It is buggy way more often than it should be, it lacks a commercial grade search functionality, it has too much spam, it needs to in-source a URL shortening feature, and reading other people's posts in Twitter's interface is a chore at best. I could go on, but I don't want to lose focus on its overall brilliance. Twitter has changed my life for the better. I didn't really realize that I needed Twitter to help me aggregate an audience and share short thoughts with them, but in retrospect that's exactly what I have wanted and needed for a very long time.
One other rave about Twitter. I've been amazed at how freely people will "retweet" posts and share it with their friends--even commercial offers that they would never think of emailing to their friends. This sharing norm is a wonderful aspect of the Twitter community.
I often hear from people an objection to the effect of "Why in the world would I want to use Twitter?" As a reader, I say don't. Find interesting people who are posting to Twitter and then grab their RSS feed and put it in your RSS reader. As a writer, if you don't have anything to say to the world, then don't use Twitter. Use Facebook if you want, but don't manufacture thoughts; it remains true today that very few people in the world care about your breakfast choices. But if you have something substantive to say, and you are prepared to keep that within 140 characters, then you need to use Twitter. What are you waiting for?
I've written more about Twitter at http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2009/06/twitter_email_a.htm
