Twitter Anyone?

[Megacruncher]

I've not long signed up for a twitter account.
I'm not quite sure I know what it's for.
The idea seems to been that I give the world a running commentary on my every movement ("I just opened my bowels and I'm reaching for the paper etc") and that somehow people are interested in and enriched by this incessant banality.
Maybe I'm missing something.
Can anyone advise what I can use it for and more importantly whether the TSBT community might find any use for it?

[MacDitch]

The idea seems to been that I give the world a running commentary on my every movement ("I just opened my bowels and I'm reaching for the paper etc") and that somehow people are interested in and enriched by this incessant banality.
Maybe I'm missing something.

That's my understanding of it and thus the reason I've never bothered...

Can anyone advise ... ... whether the TSBT community might find any use for it?

Not that I can think of right off; unless someone wanted to actually run a project of the month (type thing) and give hourly(ish) data/updates on progress...

[PinkPenguin]

As MacDitch suggests it could be used for announcements and news.... I think the telcos love the integration with SMS....

If you haven't already try a look at SETI@home: http://twitter.com/Setihome in case it gives you an idea.

The only top 25 team using it is BOINC@Poland... I can't understand a word of it but judging from the dates at the beginning of each message they're basically using it for announcements like SETI.

...I would have thought short messages of 140 chars should have had the effect of removing the verbal diarrhoea from internet blogging. It looks like the bowel movement lobby has found a way around it... but then, once upon a time, one had to pay for every word one sent over a wire... I think I just ran out of zloties!