Funny enough I have just joined it to follow John shuttleworth but I cant make head nor tail it either.

I've looked, I've tried it, I've tried to "follow" others (no-marks as well as celebs) to no avail. I find it utterly pointless.

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Its more use for celebs, bands, media types etc who want to keep their fanbase up to date with news etc. Not that much fun for Joe Public, yet more noise to wade through along with all the texts, emails, phone messages, blog posts, forum posts. Fun to browse occasionally, but if after a while you realise you know about what is happening in Andrew Collins' life than your own mother...time to log off!

E. L. Wisty one hundred and twenty times a day. "What a boring day. I didn't even go to the lavatory."

Depends what you want out of it. If you are following fellow Word worthies and writers you get more of the same tea-splurging-onto-monitor moments. Or even entered into a free draw to win Holland's Pies for a year. Twitpics and blogs from Japan. Links to music. Word Magazine reaching the top of the Trending Topics chart with some #ludicroustopic

Biggest bore is disposing of the daily messages from "hey! Look how to get 300 followers daily!" or "you are being followed by JYIDR189slut". You just follow who you want and forget that Stephen Fry and Wossie are on Twitter. You must follow DrSamuelJohnson though. It's the law.

Quality not quantity. Short and sweet.

and you get a direct message from her. That's made it worth it for me

We're all a bit old and bitter to iscuss this from an objective perspective so I think it would be better to steal a few results of the hardworking boardmembers at B3TA who are all young, hyperconnected and surfing the zeitgeist.

http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/twitter/

There's a good few very funny images here and I can't be arsed to paste 'em all in here. Go see for yourselves.

I do have to say, though, that a few broadcasters and journalists who I otherwise admire seem to be addicted to tweeting. It strikes me as the most pointless, timewasting, narcissistic and egotistical exercise that this era has yet thrown up. I give it another three months, tops, before it dies a quiet death.

There's very little fundamental difference between a forum like this and Twitter. Join and follow Glinner (Graham Linehan) for a couple of days and you'll understand how Twitter works as a community and not just for self promotion.

Also, by not twittering you've missed out on Rhodri Marsden's ("rhodri" on Twitter) cover version of Combine Harvester that he knocked up in just over an hour and which is unbelieveably good for 75 minutes work. Oh, alright then, here it is http://rhodri.biz/pix2/combineharv.mp3

And, as with all human life, you're best ignoring 99.9% of it. But that still leaves a lot of people worth following (I follow 90, for example, although only a dozen or so are ever active at the same time).

A good number of the regulars here use it, as do the trendier members of the Staff Room (Mr H., Fraser, Andrew H., Rob F., Joe M., Jude R. and Eamonn F.), so it's pretty much like a real-time version of this blog.

Writing it off just because of what most people do with it is like writing off iPods because most people use theirs to listen to the latest Britney record. It's a tool, not a lifestyle statement.

I really like about Twitter is the search - you get a "right now" version of the web instead of Google "every webpage ever published" version, which can be incredibly useful. The other day I was getting signal problems watching something on Setanta, but I wasn't sure whether it was an issue with my dish, the cables, my TV, and with the broadcaster. So I searched Twitter for 'Setanta', and there they were, dozens of very recent tweets from people with an identical issue, confirming it was a problem with Setanta. Google simply can't do that.

makes its own point

..strangely addictive.

Some people who you'd think might be interesting and amusing simply aren't (hello Eddie Izzard, Rob Brydon) and others such as Graham Linehan, Jon Ronson, Rob Fitzpatrick and Caitlin Moran seem to spend most of their days tweeting to each other about tv and how much work they're not doing.

Plus the spat between Neil McCormick and Eamonn Forde really livened things up the other day.

you follow the 'right' people, it's a carousel of comedy & musing. If you follow the 'wrong' people it's all LOL and "I got up late, missed my ride."

That's why I'm hoping Twitter is a passing fad. Otherwise it would take up most of my day. Though why anyone should want to know what I'm up to every waking moment of my life and vice versa remains a mystery.

So as I said in a thread I started on here yonks ago, I steadfastly refuse to Twitter.

See this is what I don't get about it. Having never used it, from what I've heard it's for people who are desperate to have some famous pals, or for the famous to showboat about how famous they are with other famous people.

Clearly I'm wrong.

It sounds great - I'm always mailing my friend Helen stuff, links, asides and malapropisms via email, however while at work I'm not allowed social networking sites online, and at home I've got lots of other stuff to do. It sounds like a wonderful resource but, much as I'd love to know what Graham Linehan is up to at the moment, I just don't have the time or inclination - despite (ironically) being perfectly able to post about it here. I'm guessing that sales of Belle and Sebastien's back catalogue aren't going to peak in December round Fraser's way.
That was too many characters for a tweet, wasn't it?

#workavoidancetacticsfordavidquantick

I still remain unconvinced as to its value.

I can see now that it is more than just a forum for narcissitic celebs to talk to fans, and also you choose who you follow, so it is self selecting in terms of not receivibg unwanted stuff.

I still don't see that it says anything to me about my life.

I'm off to hang a DJ!

To recap on what some have mentioned above, the four uses of Twitter are:
a) to hear the pronouncements of Samuel Johnson on today's world:
http://twitter.com/DrSamuelJohnson
b) to improve day-to-day life with Viz Top Tips:
http://twitter.com/viz_top_tips
c) to be reminded that most celebs' lives are duller than your own:
http://twitter.com/insertnameoffavouritecelebhere
d) to marvel at the audacity of people who think they're interesting:
http://tweetingtoohard.com/

Five minutes of this each morning, then it's off to live my life!

[Oops - just realised how self-righteous this sounds - worthy of tweetingtoohard.com, in fact. Sorry.]

as of today. I'll update in a while if and when I form an opinion

Frankly, the cost of the courier pigeons was getting exorbitant.

was made for people who don't want to watch the recent run of good Woody Allen films.

Two weeks ago I would have agreed with you, UNCLEWHEATY. Then I joined, reluctantly, for work, and amongst other useful info I've been able to tweet has been info on two job vacancies with very short deadlines.

I send a Twitter feed to my work blog (got more regular blog readers than Twitter followers at the mo.) and use it to give instant news updates.

Also, I'm now getting fed regular Twitter news from others round the country working in the same field.

So, within two weeks, I've got to the point where whenever I find useful news items, I'm instantly thinking - "blog or tweet?"

Celeb tweeters? 'Fraid I can't be bothered.

The cottage that sends Twitter messages when a mouse is caught, a window shut, or a light switched on.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8113914.stm

That way you'll know whether it's useful or enjoyable to you or not. If it isn't and you still can't see the point, just stop. You won't have lost anything, except a few minutes of your time. You don't even have to use your real name.

I couldn't see the point of Twitter to start with. "Why do I want to know the minutaie of strangers' lives?" I thought. Having decided to give it a try, I now think it's great. Is it a passing fad? Possibly. It will inevitably get superseded by something else but until then it has a lot to offer.

Yes, of course there's a lot of dross on it but then there's an awful lot of dross on the web generally, yet it hasn't stopped any of us coming here. The point is you can easily filter out what you don't need and what isn't relevant to you.

The updates don't have to be "I'm now eating a cheese sandwich", "I'm scratching my backside" or whatever. If people are posting stuff like that, just don't follow them and you won't see it. The key is to follow interesting people who post interesting thoughts, links to things they've seen on the web and observations, just as they do here.

What music are you into? Films? TV shows? Other interests? Favourite football team? What line of work are you in? Where do you live? Do a search for any of those things and you'll probably find someone talking about them, and perhaps even saying something interesting. If they are, follow them. Then look at who they're following, and who's following them and read some of their postings (Tweets) and you'll probably find more people with similar interests. Follow them too. Search for real-life friends on there and, you've guessed it, follow them too.

Start posting on things that interest you and you will find that people start following you too, and before long you have built a little network. You can participate as much or as little as you want.

Before long you will able to look at a regularly updated, personalised stream of messages that are likely to be of interest to you. These may amuse, inform or entertain you. Your favourite band may have just announced a gig in your town. Your football team have just signed a new striker. There will be roadworks at the end of your street starting from next week. Oh, and here's something funny from YouTube. You can look at these as little or as often as you like.

Dip your toe in the water. Nothing ventured...

Twitter Creator On Iran: 'I Never Intended For Twitter To Be Useful'

http://bit.ly/IaR6D

From my Onion Twitter feed. Self-referencing and post-modern or what?

It's Twitter heresy, but his tweets are really, really dull.

I remember the short-lived Digital Living magazine magazine from a few years back, and a picture of one particularly miserable family who seemed to own every hi-tech gadget going. Also, a TV programme from last week with Giles Coren & Sue Perkins saw them 'reliving the 80s', with all its fads and trends. How many folk can look back cringing at the 80s?

And how many people will cringe when they think about all the banal crap they post on twitter? Might work for some folk, but for the vast majority I reckon it's a nonsense, and I for one won't be joining in to post about my bowel movements

A Re-Tweet as 'twere

http://bit.ly/ToS4w