elearnspace

George, there's nothing wrong with satiating the urge for feeling like one belongs. 8-)

For those who work from home (alone all day) as I do, with no company but the dogs, twitter (and seesmic) provide some sense of connection. It's like the watercooler, or the lunchroom. And as long as one is not on twitter constantly, it's hard to see the harm in posting a couple of tweets a day.

Hi Bill - hadn't thought of twittering from the working alone at home perspective. The periodic social connection with "someone out there" makes sense.

I have been having the same, "I want to join but only because everyone else has" internal discussion about FaceBook... fortunately work has helped me out and created a group for our team. It's given me a 'professional' reason to join up and find out what it is all about!! ;-)

While there's certainly nothing wrong with wanting to belong (after all, we are talking about a SOCIAL tool, right?), the compelling reason for Twitter for me are all the resources that I discover there... and nowhere else (or very late in other forums). Discovering new and interesting resources, like the casual chit-chat, may be something that you already have your fill of. Not me.

Because I presumed I was not innately social enough to dive into Twitter, it took me a while to see how it would be useful or applicable. I use Twitter primarily as a rhythmic journal throughout the week primarily intended for myself. To that end, my account's updates are not public (though there are about a dozen people who I allow to follow me).

I also have the chance to look over the shoulder, as it were, of other professionals and colleagues that I respect or admire.

I hung about in the cheap seats for a while before giving Twitter a try. Mainly because I couldn't see a purpose in it for myself; but ultimately this gave way to research curiosity and I created an account.

Socially speaking there are definitely times I find it distracting and turn off my IM updates to get some actual work done, but other times it represents a pleasant background banter - sort of like eavesdropping in a pub.

That said I have found it particularly useful in a couple of different ways:

a) It's a quick way to obtain feedback or answers to questions. There have been a couple of times when I've been researching a topic that I know others are already familiar with (such as recommendations on open source software to perform a certain task or the URL to an online resource) and have Twittered an all-points bulletin request from the tech people who follow me.

Most of the time I'll get a response immediately, which either answers my question outright or points me in the right direction. Importantly it's never been spam.

b) It's becoming a real-time source of unedited information on big events. With the exception of today's massively inconvenient outage during Steve Jobs' keynote, a tremendous amount of raw information has begun to flow through Twitter via live bloggers.

The Iowa Caucus was an example of this, as was this week's 60 minutes interview with Mark Zuckerberg. Duncan Riley from TechCrunch in particular was in fine form. He was far more blunt on his tweets than what appeared in his review in TechCrunch later that night and you really could see his train of thought develop across the few dozen posts he did leading up to the TC article.

So in that sense I think it provides a much more honest depiction of public opinion than the more formal and well-considered blog entries and news articles you read.

That said, I suppose this is less useful in a practical sense than it is in a sociological sense.

c) Leads on emerging stories. This is pretty similar to "b" admittedly, but I find that the people I follow have a tendency to share useful articles as tweets (posts) and/or make comments that point to emerging stories.

The benefit for me here is that quite a few of the people I follow have similar research/tech interests, so it's a really fast way to locate interesting articles.

Anyway that's my 2¢ on the subject.

Cheers,

Mike

Like George, I've not found a compelling reason for me to use Twitter. However, because of the work of Dr. William Glasser, MD I have a better understanding of why Twitter and all the new host of Social Networking Web 2.0 applications are all the rage among the tech savvy (and especially the youth): humans have a genetic need to feel a sense of belonging / love / connection with others. Twitter and these other tools help people feel that they can make these connections and feel a sense of belonging. I don't use these websites, because I don't need them - my family, friends and co-workers satisfy that need in my life. But I'm willing to learn more and perhaps find a new way to connect with the world. Twitter just hasn't been "it" for me.