The best explanation I've found is here (via Chris Glass). If you see friends on a regular basis, maybe it's pointless, but I really like it for all my out of town friends. I've recently decided to try it out, and thus far it's made me feel more connected with others who are in-the-know of Twitter.
To clarify: it's not an ego thing either - I certainly don't think my life is SO interesting that everyone should know my every last move. It's just for those who care about details. Because I'm a person who cares about details in others' lives, I do it hoping that you will too...because it does start to seem egotistical when you're the only one twittering with no one else to follow.
If it's still annoying you, well...sorry. Adjust your privacy/notification settings, I guess, on Facebook. For me, the convenience of its integration in all of the applications I use is great. This means I don't have to log into Blogger AND Facebook just to say the same thing. Plus it allows me to leave the computer to address those basic survival needs that have fallen by the wayside (like food) from endless weeks of surfing the net. Arguably the internet just invaded my life more, but at least I'm not isolating myself in the stale air of the house. I mean, I should be dead from having breathed up (?) all the oxygen in the house. (Thank you iPhone and now Twitter for getting me out in the sunshine).
I'll make a prediction: Twitter will be the next wave of communication technology. It appeals to those who won't/can't commit to writing a full-blown blog, and that's okay because we don't need a full-blown post on how you're late for work, BUT at least I know something about your stress level today. My best friends have always been the ones I've seen every day. So for pure scheduling reasons, I had/have great friends from grade school and high school. College wasn't the same because everyone's schedules varied so much, but my closest friends lived near by/with me. We didn't have the same classes, but we still saw each other every day and knew the kind of day we were all having. To be able to follow people through daily ups and downs means a lot. Grad school was a return to more of the routine schedule because I had lots of the same classes with lots of the same people. I LOVED that. Many close friends came from that. My point is while Twitter can't replace an actual meeting with friends, it helps. It's made goodbyes seem not so permanent.
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I've seen lots of Twitters lately in the pregnancy sphere: when friends have gone into labor, they've used twitter to easily update their status to all the family and friends that want to know what's going on so that they don't have to go through the chain of phone calls. It's been neat to get the excitement and info straight from the source.
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