I keep talking with company representatives who tell me they are on Twitter but don't know why. Perhaps their feelings have to do with the limited number of followers many companies have - often less than 50. At the opposite end of the spectrum with 7,100 followers is Oracle who has hundreds of thousands of customers and is arguably one of the largest software/hardware companies around.
Perhaps the biggest concern for people relying on Twitter as a marketing vehicle is the research which shows how many tweets are absolutely useless. By that I mean falling into the "I am eating a sandwich" category. According to Pear Analytics 40.55% of tweets fall into this category.
Personally I have found some use in Twitter and like anything else, the quality of the tweets you read are in direct correlation to how well you pick who to follow. This is just like the quality of news being directly related to the type of sites you visit or newspapers you purchase.
I haven't had a chance to use TweetDeck yet but I hear it is quite good at stripping out the people you follow who don't have much useful information to share.One of the areas where Twitter seems to have a real benefit is as a service which augments a live conference experience. In two weeks ITEXPO takes place in Los Angeles and this will mark the first time where TMC uses Twitter in a serious way. If you would like to track the event, be sure to sign up for the feed now and I hope to see you at the show.
I'll be sure to let you know if Twitter made the conference experience any better.
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Are we going to have a twitter feed monitor up anywhere at IT EXPO West?
Twitter is as useful as you make it. It's a medium of commication and nothing more. Minus the 140 chars and any of the twitter apps there is nothing special about it. The tweeter is what adds value, not the medium.
Some deride twitter but it's likely their lack of creativity or persistence which they are complaining about.
Ryan
Peter, Good question -- let me look into it. Someone from marketing will hopefully respond soon.