14 Reasons to use twitter: a personal prospective

1. Opinions – to glean opinions from trusted friends/sources on particular matters?

2. References – to get references and referrals from trusted sources?

3. Quick Information – to get quick information (eg. what is Joe's girlfriend's name … have to meet with them in 10 minutes?).

4. Advice – to gather input about what others think about a product/service you are considering purchasing. Merely use Twitter Search to scope out what others think about the product.

5. News – to keep atop the latest breaking news in topics related to your interests.

6. Entertainment – to be entertained. Just make sure you follow entertaining people. Here's a quick tip for finding people you like; enter: site: twitter.com "full stage name of person you find entertaining"

7. Communication – to communicate with numerous others at once without having to make individual phone calls (eg. going to Java Joes for coffee tonite @ 7 … meet me there if interested!).

8. Employment – to find a job, merely follow the Twitter accounts of companies you wish to work for, or those of specific headhunters/agencies.

9. Friendship – to make new friends. Follow those with similar interests, and engage them in conversation.

10. Connect – to connect with old friends. Sometimes it's difficult to break the ice after a number of years apart. With Twitter, it's much easier to do.

11. Warnings – to broadcast to as many people as possible when you've been RIPPED OFF by a company, and to warn others to avoid them!

12. Customer Service - to get quicker responses from customer service departments. Typically companies will respond very quickly to negative information about them or their products out on the web.

13. Personal Branding – To monitor your own personal brand online to see how you are perceived. Perform a Twitter Search for your Twitter user name, and your full name in quotations (eg. "LisaEmms").

14. Reminder Service – as a reminder service, applications exist to send you reminders at specific times and dates (eg. Jennifer's birthday is tomorrow)