Twitter: do you find it useful?

[twinscythe12332]

I've been on twitter for a while now (2-3 months), and I don't know how people can continuously post the mundane everyday crud they do. while there will be the occasional linked gem, I'd say a good 80% is just useless information. have any of you found it to be useful?

[IanF]

Twin
I signed up and look at it about 3 times a week. To much reposting of mashable's entries and posting the same tweet a few times does not make sense to me. Some businesses in the US use it, and say it is the future of communication, I hope not.

[twinscythe12332]

Twitter would need a very specific code of conduct for it to work in a business environment. A tweet is very similar to an SMS in that it is 140 characters long. unfortunately, just like an SMS, it can be full of ...
keeping this in mind, it could be a decent SMS replacement now that I think about it ... as long as the receiver is online to get it.

[Dave A]

I've found it interesting at times. But useful? Not really.

[AndyD]

I think the 10% of its functionality that might be usefull is buried in the 90% mundane crap which renders it useless to me. Same goes for Facebook, it was at one time useful for staying in touch with people you otherwise wouldn't but when your homepage and you inbox is constantly spammed to tell you how many thousands of hours one of your friends friends has spent on Farmville or one of the other thousands of useless apps......you can keep it.

The only social networking mechanism I found remotely useful was Craigslist when I stayed in the US. It was like a mixture of Gumtree meets the old style Facebook with forums.

[CompuDave]

It used to be a very useful business networking tool. The problem is definitely related to it's growth and lack of control. Now sifting through all the crap is just not worth the effort.

[garthu]

Never used

Had a look at and go with the general consensus thats its a waste of time more than anything. Further increases the anti-social community we develop with all on line stuff i believe so dont use it. If i thought it would influence bu, i would though. Someone said "hop not"... me too..

[Butch Hannan]

It is in my humble opinion an insult to our intelligence or lack of it.

[twinscythe12332]

has anyone used twitter/facebook to keep track of:
Employees' remarks regarding the company or boss that they work for?
Their mindset and persona?
When tweeting occurs during company time?

There have been plenty of cases where people have been let go after calling their boss something nasty or talking smack about their company on facebook, but I'm not so sure about twitter. Still the posibility is out there...
Would that be a fair evaluation of the person in terms of giving them a warning? (sharing trade information, calling the boss a dips**t, etc)

[Dave A]

I've had a member of staff whisper in my ear that I should look at another staff member's Facebook page once.

[Erika Gordon]

I thought I was lost in the techno world with Twitter and FaceBook. I suppose the guys had had invested millions in Twitter and Facebook want us all to believe that there is a reason to advertise on Twitter and Facebook to realize their own investments.

Questions:
Is Twitter profitable?
Is FaceBook profitable?

[Dave A]

Questions:
Is Twitter profitable?
Is FaceBook profitable?

To the site owners or the users?

Last I heard, Twitter still hadn't figured a viable way to monetise the site.
Facebook at least has an advertising revenue stream nowadays.

As for users - maybe "profitable" isn't the issue. I'd suggest the real issue is "value." Facebook's sustained popularity suggests they have a pretty solid value proposition.

Twitter? Dunno. Could end up being a fad, perhaps?