You’ve heard about it. You know someone who uses it. You dabble with it. You use it like the cheap tramp that it is. Apart from fleshing out word count, the point of these statements is to have you agree that Twitter is neither new nor news.

Yet, I get the feeling that many people just CBF learning more about it. For most internet users, Twitter competes for the same headspace as Facebook, Hotmail and SMS. The most common excuse people use for not having a Twitter account is, “if I want to know whether someone is eating dinner or picking up at the pub, I’ll check their Facebook status.” I’m not denying that you get a fair bit of that flippant, day-to-day tripe from some of those you follow. You only need to have been one of Kanye West’s 980,000 mates to be familiar with beans of wisdom such as, “…if I speak in 3rd person it's because I'm quoting people sometimes I forget to put the quotations you know my grammar.. #ITSAPROCESS.”

The true power of Twitter is that it allows the reader to tailor a feed of information that is absolutely relevant. Part of the genius behind it is Twitter’s SMS inspired 140 character limit, which forces users to express as much as possible and include a link to an image or story, without overwhelming the reader. Such concise messages, or tweets, allow the reader to scan a lot of information without having to commit to reading full stories. In effect a good Twitter user creates attention-grabbing newspaper headlines. Detractors would argue that this is nothing new and that there are plenty of other mainstream ways of gathering interesting information, including RSS feeds, forums and email. But look at yourself in the mirror; if you know more than 10 people who knowingly use RSS, then you and your friends aren’t mainstream and I’m surprised you’re still reading.

Yes, Twitter does borrow a lot from other modes of online communication. It ties together facets of instant messaging/texting, Facebook status, blogging and online forums. At any one time your feed can have a constant dialogue from or between your BFFs (best friends for life), a minor ABC celebrity and Snoop Dog. Indeed, the smarter celebrities and regarded subject-matter-experts actually engage in discussion with their audience, rather than just preaching to faceless fans. Yes you can do this on Facebook’s newsfeed but Farmville lives there, so… I rest my case. As an aside, I view Facebook like I do a chore—it’s just a really crap office admin job where you comment on photos and remotely plant tomatoes. Worst still, you do it all for free (unless you’re using it at work).

Beyond the obvious uses for Twitter, it has proven to be real-time barometer for significant events around the world. Whether you’re following tweets about the hung Australian election, the fate of the shrimp industry in the Gulf of Mexico or a storm that is about to hit—minute-by-minute accounts from people who are actually at the event are rapidly forwarded through Twitter’s vast network. Quite often, news breaks on Twitter before the networks appear to knowanything about it. This weekend’s earthquake in Christchurch was articulately tweeted live by residents as they experienced it.

I’m not trying to sell this thing to you (yes I am), but if you wish to make that jump into Twitter I suggest you do so by casting aside any of your own preconceptions and adopting mine. Perhaps what you need to do is look beyond your current social network for the wealth of things you want to know concerning… Royksopp freely streaming their new album, for example. Just don’t let Kanye ruin it for you. “I’m sorry, Taylor.”