But Twitter is only a few years old and many aren't quite sure what to do with the kid. Because it's free, easy to use and very portable, it's expected to gain 12.1 million registered users by the end of the year - and right now, a lot of people are simply messing around with it. This includes the legions of Oprah lemmings who signed up earlier this year after Ms. O said she uses it.
Eventually, those with nothing to say but "I'm eating corn flakes" and those tired of receiving such compelling messages from their self-absorbed friends, will get bored and drop out of the network for more interesting pusuits - such as watching Paula Abdul's replacement on American Idol.
In the meantime, Twitter will continue to attract and retain a core base of power users that frequently share truly useful information with others sharing common interests or working in the same industry.
For example, I think the majority of dental industry tweets I receive are keeping me pretty well informed. Inside information from industry insiders - what's not to like.
In his article Mr. Daniels goes on to say that “...of all the hellish things that have been spawned in the fever swamp that is the Internet, Twitter may turn out to be the most successful of them all — not in spite of its stupidity, but because of it.”
However, he also admits that some serious people, like George Stephanopoulos and Al Gore, use Twitter, and that he himself uses Twitter to link to his articles and blog posts.
He also mentions thatit was a Twitter user who posted the first photos of the US Airways plane crash on the Hudson River in January, and that the first reports of the Iranian protests broke on Twitter. Scooping CNN - That's some serious tweeting!
So when it's all said and done, the question of whether or not Twitter is relevant or irrelevant can be best explained by quoting the title of an Erin Clapton song, "It's in the Way That You Use it."
