Twitter: do you get it?

Okay right for some months now I've watched the inexorable growth of Twitter, and of seemingly otherwise intelligent people using it. I say "seemingly intelligent" because have you seen what they write on their twats? A reasonably established blogger (with a couple of hundred followers plus no less !!) had this to say over the weekend:


* just saw a bunch of chairs in a parking lot and a banner that said, "Mobile Prayer Room." Whoa. about an hour ago

* Does the Idaho license plate really say, "Famous Potatoes?" Wow. about an hour ago

* if you need anything, I'll be right here. about an hour ago

* who knew having so much damn fun could be so tiring. about 2 hours ago

* OVERHEARD - "How is your hole. Family?" about 2 hours ago



Amazing. Amazing because it's so crashingly dull, yet people the world over are signing on in their droves. How long do they stay to read this stuff? And do they ever bother returning?

Now call me curmudgeonly if you like, but how is it that drivel (for want of a better word) like this is part of the net's next big thing? By the way this isn't unusual- just delve into anyone's Twitting and this kind of pap seems to be the norm. I've heard well established and highly respected SEO strategists point to Twitter as being more important than say Youtube. As what? Good for forecasting new trends is one answer. But new trends amongst whom - the brain dead? people without lives? the excruciatingly dull?

Well apparently the great and the good are on there all busy twitting away to each other and it's all desperately important that we get on there too. But why? - it's mindnumbing inanity. Has Twitter got some crack team of super marketeers that want to take it to the market and sell it for squillions before the world catches on that it's er... rubbish?

If someone out there can tell me why it is so vital, so interesting and so prescient then please drop me a line. I really am interested in what is driving so many to want to use it, register it on their blogs, or their facebooks, or their Myspaces and then write total butt ass with it. But you know that old saying that goes 'you can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time....

And now for something much more pleasurable, vital and relevant.