Listen, I'm all for technology. And new things really require a shift in our mindset. I love the "global realtime-ness" of Twitter, and I'm sure that core product will still be around in five years. What form it will be in is hard to say, but I can guarantee you it will not be as Twitter, which will have become a zeitgeist-icon-of-infamy for this age in the same way Pets.com and Boo are for the dot com bubble.

To me, that's the appeal. You don't have to be unemployed to have 10 minutes a day in which to keep up, particularly when you weigh that 10 minutes spent reading Twitter against the amount of time it would take to maintain individual correspondences.

I'm not a Twitter user and this is perhaps one of the reasons I don't use it. Individual correspondence is important, and I don't think Twitter would be a good vehicle for the types of things that might be communicated in personal correspondence.

That said, it does has its purpose--perhaps I'd rather someone tweet a funny video, link, etc, etc, etc, rather than spamming their entire address book....

That's actually exactly why I like Twitter. Direct Messages are a perfect way of keeping in touch with friends over something that isn't email worthy--the equivalent of sending an SMS if we were in the same country.

I don't have time to learn to like anything but Bass and weiss beer, to find out what J-Horror is all about, to play Mob Wars on Facebook, to learn Haskell, to put up solar panels, or to visit New Orleans. Is that 6 "Ask HN" posts I'm unfairly holding back? Or is "I don't see why this is so hyped up" just a really boring story?

I am using HN to understand from (hopefully) other tech professionals if they have found a way to leverage Twitter. (And have read some good comments already in this thread.)

Twitter is very real-time, that is its power and a core part of its functionality.

So, your 6 generalised analogies on not having time for X misses the point.

Nope. Not unless you're so desperate for up mods that you're going to start posting non-posts.

It's like happening upon a pad of post-it notes. You either say "Sweet, I have a use for these," or you say "Hmm," and file it away somewhere.

Eventually, you may develop a need that is filled by little bits of paper with weak-sauce glue on the back, and remember about the post-it notes.

Likewise, you may eventually develop a need to episodically distribute short bits if information to a well-defined audience, and you might think "I could do this with Twitter. Or post-it notes and a cadre of flying monkeys."

I probably don't spend more than 15 minutes a day dealing with Twitter, but I still like using it.

If you've ever worked in a small development room with no cube walls - just some tables, a whiteboard, and 3 or 4 people (for example) - it can very easily become a fun place to get stuff done if everyone gets along. :) The dynamics are such that someone might run across a funny youTube video or a joke or have a programming question or comment, etc. and they can just blurt that out to the room. Others answer or not based on what's going on, etc. Perhaps a small discussion breaks out for a bit. Or maybe an impromptu huddle forms around one computer to work something tricky out.

To me, that is what Twitter is especially good at - replicating that kind of small group interaction over the net. It allows me to feel far less alone during the day than I actually am since I work from home now. It's not quite like IM or even a department/company chat room because I'm also able to "hear" the blurbs by certain celebrities I may follow or people I'm good friends with but who work at different companies or whatever.

If I'm busy, I just ignore Twitter. Unlike IM, it doesn't really "demand" attention - and I think anyone using a Twitter client that treats new IMs like a telephone call are doing it wrong. :) But the beauty of Twitter is that it can be used however you want - so my opinion really doesn't affect yours or anyone else's. :)

Twitter has been relatively useful for me when I've asked questions I couldn't answer (or didn't have the time to research). I've also answered questions from friends and colleagues about things like citations for articles and recommendations for tools, restaurants and so on. This "social search" aspect makes Twitter too useful for me to stop using it, though sometimes I laugh about how ridiculous some uses of Twitter are.

I've connected my Twitter and Facebook accounts so that my Twitter posts are used as my Facebook status, and for some reason I get a lot more replies to my questions on Facebook.

It's also a nice way to have interesting conversations "in public", where other people might chip in. The recent @reply changes have largely put an end to that particular use case, sadly.

Finally, it's directly and indirectly generated a lot of leads for jobs and projects (I do freelance programming). Not via shameless and annoying self promotion, but simply because people will often post if they need someone for a project. Staying up to date on the developer community in my area also means I don't miss meetups which allow for networking in the classical sense.

Personally, when I'm not working I prefer to lose myself in a book at the bookstore. Being able to block out everything and completely focus your mind on learning something is refreshing and energizing.

My good friends will always be good friends, and despite being far away, when we visit every year or two, it's just like old times. I don't need to be up on every detail of their lives every second of the day in order not to forget who they are or our friendship.

* Following celebrities. For instance, I am a huge bike racing fan, so it's cool to be able to get information from some of the pros like Lance, very directly. I even made a site to aggregate a bunch of them: http://www.bikechatter.com

* Search - you can keep tabs on search terms. For instance, I look for people writing about Hecl, and a few other things.

* 'Spamming' people. Either the aforementioned people who you find via search, or write about stuff you're doing to promote it. Well, not really spamming people, I wouldn't do that, but twitter can be a good place to "pimp stuff".

The first two really depend on other people wanting to express themselves via twitter, something I'm not convinced will necessarily exist long term. I think the "CB of Web 2.0" is a great label - we'll see if they can prove it false by being more than just a fad.

I just don't think you can split the Twitter community into two groups like that.

Flawed analysis.

Fail Whale :)

The thing is, when people who do not fit into those demographics sees that it is possible to make money and easily communicate,it drives interest, attention and people not longer within those 2 demographics to try and give it ago. Some may be successful in achieving what they want some may not.

As for the third demographic, lots of celebrities use twitter and i know people who actually just signup to follow and get the latest (semi truthful news as they put it) through twitter. They have a client on their fone and when a twitter comes from kevin rudd, or oprah or whoever they check it, give it a read and get on with their lives never writing a tweet .. ever !

I wasnt a big fan before but after using it, i find it totally indispensable in connecting and finding out what is going on. Hell i clicked on this link through a twitter tweet from @newsycombinator :P

There are people who have a lot of followers due to them having some form of celebrity. People like Jeff Atwood have talked about how due to their large number of followers they are able to get very high quality answers to questions that they have.

For some one just joining Twitter who doesn't have a "name" in the industry this type of question and answer usage is alot less useful.

I think with > 100000 it really becomes a different game. A friend of mine would buy any CD that Veronica Belmont recommends in her Twitter stream. She has > 600000 followers. That is an economic factor.

Like you, I have struggled to find personal relevance with the social aspects of the service. My friend pointed out to me that the recent mainstream growth that Twitter has been going through is starting to create a lot of services that lay outside the two demographics you mention. The one that I found most interesting was local businesses (movie theaters, coffee shops, restaurants) tweeting about day only or hour only specials etc.

If you start to think about the Twitter service outside the bounds of social networking there is a lot of potential value that is just starting to be discovered.

You don't have to 'get' twitter, if you don't it means either your friends and family don't use it or your just a very introverted person.

1) People who find Twitter fun/useful & like it

2) People who don't

Both groups are OK.

"Twitter is what you make out of it" - Guy kawasaki

Very small group of friends (less than 5 or so) talking. Too many friends becomes Facebook and its news feed.

OR

Following certain news that updates frequently such as current surf reports, current traffic speed on a specific street, current location of something, etc.

I say OR because you should only do one or the other since (at least I can't figure it out) there is no filtering on Twitter. Therefore, following too many things becomes incredibly impractical. At the same time, these status updates of things that update frequently can just as easily be accomplished via RSS feeds, especially since there is no communication back to whatever you're following.

There are clients that do provide this functionality.

Also, you could set something up to tweet automatically, just for fun.

The nice thing about twitter is that it is quite forgiving. You don't have to read everything, and you don't have to be always on.

If you want to say something thoughtful and not generate noise into the tweetsphere, it takes a long time and a lot of tries to express your thought intelligently in 140 characters. At least, it does for me. I agree with you, however, that he should try it. Twitter is one of those things that are hard to explain because of their simplicity.

It's a good way to keep up with what people in your field are working on, or what they're consuming that might influence their work in the future. If someone "over-tweets" it's easy to not follow them.

i can easily imagine people saying the same things about email, the internet, instant messaging, etc.