Also, something I left out: one of the most valuable parts of Twitter comes not from following certain people, but following a search term (or "hashtag").
Example: Michael Vick signing with the Eagles this past week. I found out about this from following the #NFL tag. I saw it there hours before even the first rumor blog picked it up, let alone ESPN.
For something more appropriate for this site: following the #defcon tag was easily the best resource I had during that event while I was stuck at work. Anything interesting that happened appeared instantly there.
Twitter is amazing for unfolding events. There's absolutely no counterpart to this on sites like Facebook, it's just a completely different focus.
> I saw it there hours before even the first rumor blog picked it up, let alone ESPN.
Does it really matter that you got the rumor/news hours before the story 'hit'? I can understand that getting such news as fast as possible might be a utility if you are a sports gamble, or sports reporter... But for the vast majority of people, do those extra couple of hours really matter?
Example: Michael Vick signing with the Eagles this past week. I found out about this from following the #NFL tag. I saw it there hours before even the first rumor blog picked it up, let alone ESPN.
For something more appropriate for this site: following the #defcon tag was easily the best resource I had during that event while I was stuck at work. Anything interesting that happened appeared instantly there.
Twitter is amazing for unfolding events. There's absolutely no counterpart to this on sites like Facebook, it's just a completely different focus.