Twitter has become awful.....

Most of the people I exchange tweets with are people I didn't know before. I've gotten to know half a dozen people in my town, some of whom have given me great recommendations for restaurants, etc. One person I've met lives in my town and is a runner, like me, and we're going to run together to try to push each other to stay in shape. I also run in races, and the local club that sponsors races uses Twitter to tell members when certain races are reaching their capacity and will be closed. I like to follow the news and have gotten a lot of up-to-the-minute information on what's happening in Iran, for example... Twitter is one of the mail tools the Iranians have used to get out the word on what's going on there. And there are a lot of reporters, editors, etc. there. In addition, news sources from CNN to my local town newspaper use Twitter to send out news stories. In a tweet you can fit a headline and a link to the Web page containing the story. A lot of companies are on Twitter and use it to let customers know about deals--such as Dell Computer alerting people about sales on limited-supply computers and close-outs, and Amazon.com notifying people of special one-day-only sales. While a tweet is only 140 characters, that often includes a link to a Web page (news article as mentioned above, or a music or video page, or a photo)... so you're often getting a lot more than can fit in just 140 characters. I'm not much into "celebrities," but I do like certain musicians and writers, and I enjoy reading their tweets telling me when they're going on tour, when their new album is coming out, or the process they use to write a book or a song.

well absolutely. Friends. FRIENDS. A politician is not my friend. I really can't say that I'm friends with many celebrities either. If I were, then I wouldn't consider them a celebrity lol. The nice thing about twitter though is that you can talk via private messages to independent artists and people who are not megamillion dollar recording stars - and actually talk to them.

No work at all. I choose who I want to follow, and automatically receive their messages. Some people's messages are more important to me than others, so I filter them into a separate folder... it's no different from having a separate email inbox for friends & family or for work-related messages. It's pretty simple. If a person wants to really tweak their options, they can... just as some people create multiple folders, color-coded messages, etc. in their email (I personally don't get that detailed, on Twitter or on email).

Sounds like an awful lot of work to not talk to people you don't want to talk to!

I can't stand all the celebrities and politicians. Now some of the NORMAL ones, like perhaps American Idol contestants, Survivor contestants, NORMAL ordinary people who have been catapulted into the limelight for actual talent or interesting-ness... I don't mind seeing them. I don't feel that someone who is famous for underwear modeling, tv shows, newscasting, or being a politician should get any recognition or 'following' thru a site such as twitter. It's almost like they are putting up their own banner, extremely uncool. Kinda like 'look at me! look at me! I'm cool! I use twitter!' No, you're not cool. You just want to pretend you are, so you broadcast into the internet so you can say 'I share my thoughts with cyberspace and people follow me'. Delusional. LOL!

And then it's not fun anymore. Once everybody discovers it and subscribes, what is the point? LOL!