I have been in IT for over 12 years. I enjoy almost all technology and believe it makes life "easier" in many many ways. It brings me joy to work with new up and coming technologies and explore how things work and how they can make my users job more pleasant.

I have been trying to wrap my head around twitter since I first heard about it. I do not understand the need or the popularity that surrounds it. I read many columns on the internet and twitter is almost always mentioned in one way or another.

Do you guys "Tweet"? I feel so foolish even typing that.

PS I understand that this is generally more popular with the younger crowd but I am in my early 30's and still cannot grasp the need.

I think that Twitter is the most useless social networking site. The average user "retention" is about 1 month - after that time people just stop. Some have found a use - perhaps they have nothing else to do with their time.

I have set up my HTPC to "Tweet" when it is recording a show. This lets me keep an eye on it to make sure that everything is going ok - for example:

SageTweet'Air New Zealand Cup Rugby' has finished recording. #SageAlert

If I want to check it out I can just log onto Twitter, from a PC or my Blackberry, to see that everything is going ok.

But I don't Tweet myself.

Back in my day if you accused someone of tweeting you ended up in a fistfight.

I signed up one night just to see what all the commotion was about. Didn't really see much going on.

A rough comparison:

Tweeting is to blogging what e-mail is to snail mail.

It's a more immediate, dynamic version of blogging.

So, if you can understand blogging, then it's just a small step to get to tweeting.

Call it micro-blogging, if you want.

I don't twitter either. Like facebook some people feel the need the post the most mundane dribble of their boring lives. Do I really need to know that my cousin just 'did a load of laundry' or 'baked cookies mmmmn'? Perhaps it makes them feel significant or admired. I update my status once a month and only if something significant happens. Or I post some photos for my family.

But then again we have have different levels of comfort when it comes to our private lives. Different strokes I say.

@digitalhome:im reading a thread talking about twitter.

@digitalhome: im going back to work now,

I love twitter. But I use it as a news aggregation tool. Instead of using RSS feeds I subscribe to specific news and information twitter accounts and use a third party application to view all the twitter updates.

I find it much easier to have my local newspaper headlines come to me rather than remember to browse to their website to read about what's going on.

Having an interest in technology news I subscribe to many CNET news feeds for their headlines as well.

I don't subscribe to any celebrity twitter feeds for the same reason that I don't watch TMZ, I don't care about that crap.

To me you get what you want out of twitter. But my comparison of Twitter replacing RSS feeds is more accurate for what I use it for.

I don't tweet but I have found that by following people who are frequent posters and entertaining, it can be fun to read the tweets. Informative too.

@TKG26: Get back to work #yourboss

I signed up for a Twitter to see what its all about but have never used it nor felt the need. I can see it among friends as a way to let friends know what your up to but email and text messaging does that for me.

I have a 110 lb. greyhound who tweets like a bird and that's all I can take.

A recent survey found that most of the people who sign up for Twitter drop off fairly quickly.

Twitter: More Hype than excitement? (http://www.digitalhome.ca/content/view/3760/280/)

IMO, this is a niche service that has value but I can't see widespread adoption.

Most Canadians don't know Twitter exists (http://www.digitalhome.ca/content/view/3773/280/)

From TheOnion.com: A survey by Nielsen found that only 16 percent of Twitter users were under 25. What do you think? (http://www.theonion.com/content/amvo/teens_dont_tweet)

From NielsenWire: Twitterers (a.k.a. Tweeters) are not primarily teens or college students as you might expect. In fact, in February the largest age group on Twitter was 35-49 (http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/twitters-tweet-smell-of-success/)

I signed up just to get some celebrity tweets. If the person tweeting has an interesting life and can write well then they can be very entertaining.

As far as active tweeters go, I think this technology meant to cater to mobile/smartphone users i.e. if all you do is check up on tweets a couple of times a day on your home PC, or tweet about something when you get home two hours after the fact, then that kind of defeat's the purpose Twitter's portability.

So I would tie Twitter's success to emergence and growth of mobile, internet-capable devices. It has also gained enough mass appeal and acceptance that I don't think it'll simply go away as another social networking fad. Even if most uses quickly join, then lose interest, there are those people that use it for things like breaking-news reporting (and I don't mean 'Kanye's a jackass' off-the-record comments :p), making it an actual useful tool for distributing information.

I'm in my mid 40's and don't Tweet or use Facebook or any other social network service. I don't understand the point. I feel the same about texting too. Why would I bother when I can just talk to someone or leave a message? Guess I'm just old school.

I subscribe to an Astronomy email and last month's had this:
Please note, the Skymaps.com Update e-mail service will be suspended after this issue.

The widespread abuse of e-mail means that this service is no longer as
effective as it once was. The global emergence of Twitter means that we can
provide faster notifications and additional free products to our subscribers. So
please consider following us as we make the move to Twitter. It's easy to join
and it's free.
I have no interest in signing up for Twitter. Perhaps there will be enough of us and the end of the month will see another email saying they're sticking with email?

I signed up just to see what the mainstream media fascination was (nobody I know, including teenagers, cares for it) and I deleted my account three weeks later once spammers started 'following' me in order to sell their crap.

Totally stupid, in my opinion.