I have a signin but i dont ever use it.  Can you tell me some of the real uses of twitter.  I am really not interested in what some celebrity or politician is thinking today.  What are the real uses of it for real people in day to day life?

Username icaltun. Not very active lately though. More following than tweeting

I used it to network with freelancers in London as well as people interested in some of the same things as me. It's also good to keep people informed about whether you're travelling, about to arrive at a meetup or more. 

It's also about conversing with other users, commenting on what they're doing or what they're working on. It's like chat but open. 

Because of it's nature the messages are easy to access when you're mobile, whether through applications or the mobile website. 

it's uses are diverse therefore it is up to the user to find a use for the site. 

You shouldn't follow the celebrities because they are followed by far too many people to be able to give you the time of day. 

At the beginning it's good just to follow, to get an idea of who's active and how people use it. I wasn't that active until I went to my first two tweetups. 

What I like about the site is that you get to "know" people over the weeks and months so that the desire to meet in person increases. Now that the site is already popular in a few countries having people you know active on the site might help it feel more relevant. Add to this that you can keep the messages private so that just your friends can see them and you have added value. 

meh .. not convinced... do i really need to announce it to people that i am travelling or that I am arriving at a meetup? Or what am i doing this morning at 10 AM. I see enough of this silly stuff on other social networking sites where people fulfill their inner need to feel important by putting up some silly status update message just to get some attention.

I dont' know you personally and I am sure you have found good use for twitter but for the masses I still don't get its use..sorry to say.

You don't have to use it and I don't see it's use for most people. Most people have no need for facebook either. They create an account, update less than once a month and that's it. It depends on a few factors. 

- Computer

- laptop

- internet connection

- social circles

- work type. 

After all if you have a desktop you're not going to sit there in your free time just reading tweets. 

If you have a laptop that's heavy or a slow start up time you are going to reply  to and send e-mails every few hours. 

With the internet connection if you have a smartphone you may use facebook instead because you already have a network of friends there so you are communicating with those you will meet later in the day or week. 

Of course after this you have the social circle. If none of your friends are active then why go to a network where you would be isolated, solitary, rather than social. 

Work type is another important factor. If you're a freelancer or a student you may have a big workload but quite a bit of "free time" where you can afford to spend a little more time interacting electronically rather than face to face. If you travel it may be beneficial to communicate with people before you land. Quite a few people have gone from event to event already knowing a few people as a result of their online participation in discussions. 

So for those reasons I don't think it's for most people. At the same time if people are active then I am curious to see who these people are. 

I might be missing out on something by ignoring Twitter.  I have yet to discover what that might be.

Facebook, on the other hand...

Facebook is the friends you've met, twitter is the friends you have yet to meet. 

Computer

- laptop - Check

- internet connection - Wireless - Check

- social circles - I have one --slanted towards salsa lovers - Check

- work type - IT industry both in the US and here - Although curently on a sabbatical - Check

Do I feel a need for twitter - NOPE

Exactly my point.

Besides, if I would only increase the amount of herassment by glocals women from whom I know ignore chat requests

Besides, if I would only increase the amount of herassment by glocals women from whom I know ignore chat requests

Again but now in English:

Besides, If I would, it would only increase the amount of herassment by glocals women, from whom I now ignore chat requests

Your reactions are part of the reason twitter is useless, especially in Geneva. 

i just asked what are some good uses for it and I am not convinced if I need to be on twitter from the uses you mentioned in your response.. how is that a bad reaction and the reason for twitter not being popular in Geneva ???

From what you said, its a niche tool made for niche group of people and not for everybody and thats what I was echoing... may be I am an average joe and cant find a real use for it. thats it .. no harm done....

I believe that too much information is not good for friendships. It will decrease the amount of REAL communication with friends and family as you already know what they are upto.

Just 2 examples of negative impact:

- Say you give a party, bbq or whatever and you want to invite friend X to come. So you check twitter or facebook and read that your friend X is out of town, so you decide not invite him. If you wouldn't have known, you would have called him and your friend X would have appreciated your invite as you thought of him. He might even do another proposal for another day instead.

- In case you're both twittering your friend X might actually be upset as he twitters every small detail into the world and you haven't read he was out of town.

Especially the 2nd one scares me!!

Never the less, maybe you're right about networking and ofcourse famous people, I don't know the site at all. All I know is that it annoys me that people already use sites like Facebook for most random BS as twitter. I just don't wanna know and why would they think others actually care..

Twitters: Out on a date this chicka looks so tight!

Twitters  again: She came back from the toilet looking very angry, slapped me, and then left. I suppose she has twitter too :(

I can't tell you because I'm not convinced myself although I was a passionate user of the service two to three years ago. In Geneva it's more interesting to use Glocals, more local, more relevant. The activities are also more varied. 

There is also a dispassionate invite. That's the one where you get an invite to an event although you haven't been in the country for months/years and it's clear from your facebook activity. 

I see more value in Glocals as a social site. It is more relevant to those of us living in this country. Twitter is far too broad, far too chaotic and disorganised. Glocals is a more time efficient place to meet new people. 

As to that date going wrong scenario the opposite can be true. Know a girl in the US who chatted with one guy via twitter and they're due to be married in November. At the same time can you think of a geekier "How I met your mother" story. "We were bored at work, chatting online and once we met in person fell in love".

That doesn't mean I don't think it's fun for a fling or two in different European cities. 

"Twitter is far too broad, far too chaotic and disorganised"

Ok.. so you are not as big a fan of twitter as I thought u were...I still think there is more hype to it than warrated .. now lets talk about the IPAD :)

The Ipad is theoretically one of the best devices around. It's a computer, a photo frame and a mobile device all combined into one. The drawback is that although I have one it goes unused for a few days at a time. 

One of my biggest dissapointments is that apps on the ipad seem to be made for left handed rather than right handed people. This means that when I'm on a couch or in bed I have to use the hand I feel comfortable holding with it to flick through content. 

On the positive side after a day of canyoning, rock climbing or hiking you can meet the people you did certain activities with and show them the images of the previous event's images. 

uhhh $500 for the functionality u mentioned is something only Apple fanbois would spend ...I recently spent a week travelling with a family with kids .they had 2 nintendo gamboys .. 1 sony psp ..and an IPAD... the IPAD was only used when they got bored of the other devices ..and played pinball or some silly game on it... at the airport we wantd to watch some sports .. IPAD wasnt able to play the stream because it was in flash while my netbook came in very handy and we watched the game while waiting for our delayed flight .... so in the end they were carrying a photo frame with them to which they couldnt transfer the pictures from their camera because they couldnt not insert the SD card or the USB stick coz Apple doesnt like that ...

There are quite a few people that use it all the time. Usually the mobile phone is enough when out and about though. 

"Just 2 examples of negative impact:

- Say you give a party, bbq or whatever and you want to invite friend X to come. So you check twitter or facebook and read that your friend X is out of town, so you decide not invite him. If you wouldn't have known, you would have called him and your friend X would have appreciated your invite as you thought of him. He might even do another proposal for another day instead".

the good pint is you save your phone credit, especially if you have a prepaid