Twitter - what is

Recently much ado about nothing concerning Twitter. Why one does it/ Would you give it up/Are you loving or hating it?
Two twitter conferences being planned, there is twitter hate [when you abuse unknown people on theT because you simply do not like their tweets although you follow them], twitter envy [where you don't get why people don't follow you], twitter confusion [where you are not sure how and how often to use twitter], twitter addiction [where every second of your waking time is spent thinking about what happens on twitter], twitter challenges [ where Ashton Kutcher wants to beat CNN, and Bobby wants to beat Manafu], twitter PR, twitter anti-PR, etc
So what's the deal with this twitter anyway? Three things:

1. community
2. social network
3. expression

If you recall, Twitter [yes, I will waver between spelling it with small or large caps T] started out with the question "what are your loved ones doing now?". So, initially, it was thought of as a community updater, you add your loved ones, make a group and keep each other informed on what happens. It was the instant messenger version of Yahoo Groups.

Later, people found that following loved ones was actually crap, because let's face it, loved ones are usually around so no need to read your mon's tweets about baking. But, relying on the age long principle of "nosiness" - wanting to get into everybody's business - they found that they could follow other people they were interested in [ which explains why Ashton beat CNN - not a lot of people are really interested in news]. From here the social network effect - which made it possible for a larger community to form, based not on family or relationship ties but on the sole argument of "Twitter usage" - you add people because they, like you, use Twitter and you are interested in what they do here.

Third, Twitter retains, [and Thank God for that] the quintessence of individual expression: it allows you to blurt out your thoughts without the weight of responsibility of a blog or, even worse, of a written document. That is why it ranks top among the microblogging tools: because it enables people to produce and follow content.

LATER EDIT: I also want to pitch to you one extra idea: BIOGRAPHY. When you are a Twitter user and update often, the app literally develops an online biography of what you think and do (unlike blogs which are more about what you think, or should be). This biography helps other followers assess their interest in you and also may influence things as varied as your job (because employers can look up your twitter account and check it) and personal life (please refer to my article on Twitter dating :-))

So, when you use twitter, think of the above and try to figure out how much of each you are doing. Ideally, you should be doing a bit of all, but, if you don't want to become a "social neworking slut" you should make sure 2 is evenly balanced out by 3 and 1 :-)

[THIS POST IS OPEN TO ADDITIONS AND SUGGESTIONS]
image thanks to