Nedra Weinreich has a highly detailed post about the utility of Twitter, and how she scoffed before she actually explored it:

When I first read about Twitter last year, I scoffed. Who cares what other people are doing, thinking or eating every waking moment of the day? …

While I was on my blogging hiatus … I decided to try out Twitter on a short-term basis to see if I thought it was worthwhile. After a few days of using it, I was hooked. I found that Twitter was a great way to have ongoing conversations and build relationships with colleagues, get quick answers to questions and get pointers to useful links.

[Via : Spare Change: Twitter for Health.]

She goes on to list many, many practical possibilities for Twitter, such as:

• Providing information and tips - ex: eDiets, womenshealth, Health News
• Providing motivational support - ex: Qwitter (smoking cessation), Twitter PT Challenge (fitness)
• Early warning systems - ex: Morbus (pandemics), trouble alerts

Nedra also carefully examines benefits and limitations.

Twitter is one of those things where you have to try it out (with some friends or colleagues) before you actually ‘get’ it. Once people do ‘get’ it though, they see how useful it could be.

One of the best things about Twitter is that you have only 140 characters to convey your message. That makes messages short, sharp and to the point, as well as quick to read.

Twitter works best with a standalone client — ie a piece of software that handles tweets separately. If you have to go and look at a web page to read tweets it just all seems pointless.

As a Mac user I can say that Twitterific is superb. Windows and Linux users should check out the Twitter fan wiki to locate good software.

This post suggested by Ted Zorn.

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