I've started twittering purely for research, you understand. Then, it happened. Astro Mike started following me - imagine that. Not only was I getting his tweets from space, but my tweets on technology were being read in space. My first inter-galactic communication! I was twitterpated. For a moment.

But I'm discovering the confusing and fickle side of this new love. I didn't tweet for 2 weeks, and my followers deserted me. Then, here I am back again and boom - my inbox is piling up with "NoName is now following you on Twitter".  Interesting.

So far, it's been a great way to run a random poll on a topic, point out new sites, technology or news, and to get great news and tips back.  (Twitter - what? If this posting has lost you so far, watch out for our post on a beginners guide to Twitter - coming soon)

Whatever you think of the latest trend in social networking, you have to take Twitter seriously just for the sheer volume of things happening on it. The latest TIME magazine has a great article on it, which is brilliant background reading.

I'm intrigued at how many good and bad examples there are of businesses using Twitter.  Here's a couple of examples to serve as food for thought:

• NZ Police in Wellington - interesting way to see what's happening in the region, and without a doubt the most reliable way to find out when the Rimutaka hill is open or closed.
• Dell Computers are using it to announce special twitter only deals, and according to this WIRED article, and making truckloads from the exercise. 
• Woot  is another company who use Twitter to announce special deals each day, and then tweet again to say when they've run out. (It's the same kind of scarcity and urgency that make our own site BankaRate so successful).

One of the people I follow is Guy Kawasaki (though he verges on spamming, and I hover over the "remove" button occasionally). This CNN Interview is a revealing look at Guy and two other "professional" twitterers.

Obviously if you have lots of followers, then you can also introduce branded content into your tweets, basically plugging products, services, jobs, e-bay or TradeMe auctions, etc. You become a channel that others can advertise in. Oh dear, there we are back to advertising again - and done wrong I bet your followers will drop like flies.

Without a doubt though Twitter is an amazing way to disseminate news. The plane that went into the Hudson river recently was first reported on Twitter.  There's some fascinating observations on how social media (including Twitter) is affecting the news in this TED talk.

Love it or hate it, at least jump on board and experiment (and don't take it personally when your followers come and go).

Follow me, c'mon share the love.