I, too, wasn't looking forward to posts like "waiting in lobby for elevator," but decided to give Twitter a try a few months ago.

My conclusion? "Twitter Makes Sense If You Follow The Right People" - that's the headline of a blog post I made back in April after my first month on Twitter.

My follow-up post provides details on exactly what I learned that first month: http://sawmillpr.wordpress.com/2008/04/29/the-first-month-on-twitter-for-contactjeff/ There's been much more since then.

Follow enough - and the right - interesting people (and participate yourself) and it'll be worth the effort.

Laura,

Wow, shows my rookie status on Twitter. Thanks for letting me know. Just removed that and now updates are available for the world to see.

Thanks again.

If you really want more people to follow you, why do you have your updates protected? Having to request to follow you is a major barrier for twitterers. Many will not bother.
~Laura aka @LPT

I "follow" three... what are they called? twitterers? tweeters? twits? three people, anyway: Shel Holtz, Penelope Trunk, and a co-worker.

Shel and Penelope put some thought into their messages. From Shel's, I learn where he is, whether he's published something new; I get useful information. From Penelope's, I gain insights into her personality, her lively mind; her tweets help to round out the person I'm coming to know through her blogs and articles.

My coworker? HE's the guy tweeting about making coffee, or the damn fine sunset, or other meaningless nonsense that gives me no insight into the world or him, no information--he states the obvious and the banal.

So perhaps Twitter's value depends on the effort put into the mini-blog, the consideration for the reader, rising to the challenge of creating in very few words a message that leaves the follower with a sense of presence and insight into the person writing.

It's easy to mock Twitter for the trivial content that gets posted by different people.

When I have time at home, I tend to put Twitter in a small Window, (using Twhirl), and it checks for new updates every 3-4 minutes.

The background noise is fairly easy to ignore, and it's easy to stop following anyone who you find has nothing worthwhile to say.

Some of the more interesting folks post little snippets of info, links to online content they recommend, and questions that are niggling at them.

If you can't seem to find "thought leaders" who are engaged in discussions via Twitter, then it might not be the tool for you. Maybe the folks you're more interested in interacting with are using some other method of connecting with a community of people.

Before giving up, I'd suggest seeing who a like-minded person is following.

Another option is to use GTalk (if you have a Google account), set Twitter up to talk to your GTalk account, and try using the "Track" function to watch the flow of commentary about a particular subject. This is similar to Technorati or Google Blog Search, but in real time.

If a story is breaking, you can track references to a company, person or event, and see what's being said by anyone who uses Twitter. Also good for monitoring buzz about your organization, or a client.

Tip: If you have a low tolerance for people commenting about subjects that may or may not be something they're an expert in, you'll probably find Twitter annoying. If you can get past that annoyance and watch for topics of interest, you may find yourself drawn to some interesting discussions.

The worst part for me is that completely random people are "following" me on Twitter. I feel like somehow I should try to be entertaining or say something worthwhile but, like Justin, I'm not doing interesting things at all points of the day.

(Although I'll be sure to Tweet about commenting about Twitter on PR Junkie.)

Of all the social media sites available to PR pros, Twitter is my least favorite. There's just too much nonsense. "I'm eating pizza while watching baseball," reads one of the many "tweets" I've received.

I like LinkedIn much more. It has so many practical uses and tools. At Ragan, we are now using LinkedIn to build a network of sources for our newsroom.

If you're on LinkedIn, can you invite me to your network?

I personally think it's completely ridiculous.

Do you really want to know what I'm doing at all times? No. I can say that with 100% confidence. But just in case, below is a select of a few typical weekend "tweets" (really? What a terrible word) would be:

--Saturday, 10:45am. Just woke up. Still tired. Might go back to sleep. Might not. Stay tuned.

--Saturday, 1pm. Just woke up. Again. Went back to sleep. Still tired, but pretty hungry. Plus, there's a Goldie Hawn movie marathon on TBS. Definitely not going back to sleep.

--Saturday, 3:30pm. "Overboard" is totally overrated. Now "Bird on a Wire", there's some cinema gold.

--Saturday, 10pm. Kinda tired, but friends coming over to drink some beers. I do love me some Old Style.

--Sunday, 10:45am. Just woke up. Still tired. Might go back to sleep. Might not. Stay tuned.

You tell me...would you want to read this crap?

I signed up to get an idea of how it works. But I can't think of a damn thing to tweet about. Who out there cares about the minutiae of my day? I barely care.