Wherein Her Grace Gets All Twittery

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Okay, I'm trying to wrap my head around this Twitter thing. Along with Facebook and Tumblr and a whole slew of social networking sites, it's one of the It Things, apparently.

I'm not so sure how I can make it work effectively for me.  Especially professionally.

No, I don't have my own Twitter account. I'm not game. Reasons why:

• It's rather short.  Rawther.  I'm not confident I can squish significant meaning into 140 characters every tweet, and I have no wish to sound trite the rest of the time.
• I'm not impressed with its signal-to-noise ratio.  Many tweets seem to be vague three word replies stuck to multiple hashtag conversations. Kind of hard to follow, really.
• The tweets that are interesting usually consist of a tiny url leading to something that is, actually, fascinating (and definitely more than 140 characters).  Almost makes Twitter little more than a redirection service.  Maybe that's its best use.
• I don't have the timely time to participate in a meaningful conversation.  My internet usage is sporadic. By the time I get around to reading Twitter, I'll be woefully out of date. Alas.
• Not convinced it's usefully more than a time-waster and another incarnation of gossip-around-the-watercooler.  (On the other hand, word-of-mouth networking (aka "gossip") is useful in the writerly community.  Especially if it uses the words "nice deal".)

Though I confess, I sometimes follow a couple of interesting people, sorting through their LOLs and other bits of lopsided conversations to find some really fascinating things.  Platform aside, they're charming no matter what social networking medium I read them on.

Also, some people claim it has value. As they have more experience than I with Twitter, I'd love to know how they make it work for them.

Things I would say, if I was tweeting:

• Humour for writers.  Ya gotta laugh.  http://www.epublishabook.com/?cat=10#axzz2cIpoGNEn
• Nobody with Internet access has any excuse not to research.  Go work on your Google Fu.
• Being a writer means that you are giving permission for someone to misunderstand you.

Everything else I say is long-winded.