Twitter - the biggest waste of time ever?

Well ok, so posting the odd 'tweet' is perhaps not the biggest time-waster in the history of the universe (although I suppose it depends on how many tweets you send!), but in the last few months since I took the plunge and created a Twitter account, I have come to the conclusion that the whole thing is simply a waste of time.

Yes, I know people rant on about it being a great tool for businesses to 'get the word out' and 'build relationships with customers' or just for friends to 'hang out in cyberspace', but I just don't really see it that way.

For one thing, the vast majority of Twitter users are techy people - the kind of people who'll install the latest gadgets and adapt the latest web services because it's 'cool'. The overwhelming majority of normal web users don't use it and aren't interested.

But secondly and more importantly, it doesn't actually acheive anything that can't be acheived just as well - or better - with existing tools: email, blogs, Facebook, etc. Those things are just as 'real-time', just as accessible, as a tweet and, crucially, because they're not forced into the confines of a ridiculously small number of characters, can generally convey the message far better. Just because it's good to be brief and to the point doesn't mean that you can say everything that needs saying in 140 characters or less!

There's an online Google maps 'mashup' called Twittervision which displays live tweets from Twitter on a world map. Sure, it's cool in one sense, but just spending a few moments watching the sorts of things people are tweeting about is all the evidence you need to see that it's mainly just fluff.

If you want to promote a product or service, write a blog post. If you want to ask a question, send an email. If you want to chat with a mate, use IM... Come on, it's not rocket science!

Next thing you know they'll be coming up with a TV channel where the programmes can only be 15 seconds long... oh, they've already done it!!!

Maybe I sound like a grumpy old man, but it's not that I don't like new technology... if it serves a valid purpose and solves a problem. I just think that things like Twitter solve a problem that never existed!

I'm sure there'll be plenty of people ready to disagree with me, but that's ok, I'm not out to win any arguments here - just say what I'm thinking.