I hear and read lots of opinions on Twitter. Some people hate it, others simply adore it. I guess I belong to the second part of that. As @coenjacobs, I’m running close to 2.000 tweets now. It fascinates me, that I have hundreds of people actually listening (reading) what I’m doing, all day long! But besides being good for my ego, Twitter is something, I can’t go without (for a long time).

But the good part is, I don’t need to go without Twitter! I can Twitter on my mobile phone, I can Twitter from the web, even from the toilet (if you’re willing to know)! So why are people calling it crap, a waste of time and what more? Because they don’t get what Twitter is all about.

My tweet announcing this article on Twitter

The key word for Twitter is networking. In the past three days, I managed to get in contact with three developers that are in need of my services. Not that I wouldn’t have come across them if I wasn’t using Twitter, but travelling halfway through the country is just a little more effort than writing a single tweet to a person you might (want to) know.

The largest benefits of Twitter
As I’ve mentioned above, Twitter is by far my most favorite tool to get in touch with people I don’t know yet, or stay in touch with my friends and contacts around the globe.

Twitter scores big time on:

1. Simplicity - I never came across a networking site, with such a clean interface.
2. Multiple purposes - You can use Twitter for anything you like. From spamming to networking.
3. Not just the web - You can send Tweets from all sorts of devices and applications.
4. Expandable - The API allows you to do nearly anything with Twitter you like.
5. It’s free - Like everything good on the internet, Twitter is still a free service.

For bloggers, it’s very useful too. can you remember Darren Rowse linking back to me, due to Twitter? To me as a relatively ’small’ blogger, that one meant so much to me. Thanks to Twitter!

Just be careful not to be ’spammy’, but a link from to time to time won’t hurt anyone.

Some downsides
Yes, even a great tool like Twitter has some downsides. For some people, the downsides of Twitter are too big to even start using it. That’s a shame. Okay, I admit, Twitter has some major problems regarding uptime they should fix. And I would really, really, love to have the IM function back online.

But I’m sure that Twitter will take care of this. At least, I hope they do. We’ve found another downside of Twitter. I can’t handle without, it’s too addictive. Perhaps some downtime is okay!

Conclusion
For the people that don’t even want to try Twitter, this post should give you some arguments why you should. Even if you spend maximum 5 minutes each day on Twitter, you will notice some improvements in your network (and before you know, you’re addicted! ).

For the people that don’t want to try Twitter, because of the downtime; please send me an email telling that. I’ll drop you a line once Twitter is to be called ’stable’ again. In return for that, you will give Twitter a try in return!

And for the people that already Twitter along, see you @ Twitter!