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Do you use Twitter ?

If so, what is your handle ?

Mine is "fr8d"

Yes, I also twitter. Name is "rombre".

No - too simple for me - I like my tech big, complicated and detailed :)

Of all the useless "web 2.0" products, I find Twitter to be the most useless.

I wish I could recall who blogged over a few weeks about their trying out twitter. Went something like:

* Everyone seems to be using twitter, guess I better give it a go
* Trying it, what's the fuss all about?
* God twitter is useless, and potentially quite annoying
* Oh, maybe it does have it's uses
* What did I ever do without twitter?

I send "tweets" (my Twitter handle is the same as here), but don't think anybody pays any attention. Sort of like walking down the sidewalk mumbling to myself, I think. Hmmmm.... could go for some peanut butter right now. Have to tweet that......

I thought that too when I first started using it, but after a few months of playing with it and tweaking who I follow and my intentions, it's become a tool. The biggest plus is subscribing to people to who provide relevant information, such as developer conferences, local businesses, etc. ^

One thing for which it might be useful in my personal context: real-time traffic updates. It's easy enough to find a Twitter client for a smartphone (I did give TinyTwitter a try) and "tweet" what you're running into during a commute, so people who are following you can avoid it. The problem would be knowing who to follow to get the updates you want. There's also the possibility of giving a stalker a literal roadmap of your daily commute and how to find you.

I personally prefer jaiku

:confused: can't this be sent via email?

Yes and I hart it. Except, I cannot understand why someone who does not know me wants to follow me.

My dog is starting to twitter, he has a much better group of followers.

Some of it can, but I like what I saw at SXSW, people twittering relevant information about different panels and such in real time.

Sitting in my office.

Wasting precious time reading FT Tech.

Love it.

What else could I do with my life.

Agree with ScottC

Have to go pee.
;)

I just started using Twitter, but not for social networking. I figure no one cares if I am watching a baseball game, and they probably care even less that I am craving a Tim Horton's old fashioned glazed donut.

My intended use for Twitter is directly related to my blog, www.flyingwithfish.com, and is intended to be used as a quick information base passing along things that may be of interest to the photogs who travel, and business travelers, who regularly follow the blog.

It seems like it can be a different way of using a system which I initially found really irritating

If anyone is interested, www.twitter.com/flyingwithfish

No. Never been to the site. Never looked at it. To me, it sounds like a giant waste of time.

don't use, probably never will.

^

I think the main draw for a lot of people is that it has the "hey look how cool I am" factor of blogging, without the effort :D

I signed up for kicks and grins. The number four ranked topic currently is “Tina Fey”, so I’m wondering just how useful it really is, besides being a fun time waster for some people.

This mimics my experience almost exactly. I 'forcefed' it to myself for a couple of weeks, almost agonizingly, and then discovered that it could actually be somewhat useful.

Couple of specific examples:

- a few weeks ago some major storms came through Cincinnati. 1.5 million people lost power and there was major damage everywhere. With power and Internet being down for several days, communication was very difficult. I follow several Twitter-ers within the Cincinnati area that provided updates to power restoration and storm cleanup news via their smartphones, which I read on my phone. This was very helpful

- I get CNN breaking news alerts via Twitter. To me this is a less obtrusive way of receiving breaking news than via email or rss feed (email and rss feeds both have a way of piling up)

- I follow a few CEO's that use Twitter and I find it rather interesting to see how they spend their time, and there have been a few instances where I've actually improved some of my own habits / workflows based on ideas from following these CEO's Twitter feeds

- Friends and family spread throughout the country. Hey, it's interesting knowing what people I care about are up to. The mundane things that they Twitter are typically items that wouldn't come up in everyday conversation. By Twittering we get a window into each others lives that sparks real-world conversation later. "Hey, I saw on Twitter that you went golfing the other day. Where'd you go? How'd you do?"

- Just this morning one of my friends Twittered about SpeedFiler for Outlook. I gave it a try and absolutely love it. Never would have known about it otherwise.

- Me and my co-workers travel a lot and use Twitter to announce location updates. "At MSP for 3 hour layover, anyone else here?" can be a useful tweet

YMMV

After reading your comments, I'm glad that I don't know what twitter is.