Ask HN: Is Twitter being a useful tool to anyone here?

In my experience twitter is just a bunch of marketers trying to sell each other stuff. More specifically, it's a bunch of marketers' tweetdeck accounts trying to sell stuff to other marketers' tweetdeck accounts.

It seems like twitter is so widely used because businesses think they have to use it. They make their account, have a third-party app post stuff for them periodically and assume they've made the right choice.

Am I wrong? Are there people out there who use it for more personal reasons like keeping in touch with friends? I'm sure there are a few but predominantly, I think it's a business tool. The problem is that businesses are assuming the general public are on the other side listening to them but I know I'm not.

As a digital marketer who has shared responsibility for PR I find Twitter has helped bring some good PR contacts. I especially find the list feature of Twitter the most useful way to consume from the fire-hose ! I have multiple personal lists I maintain of influencers (journalists, execs, and developers) in the domain I track - SaaS, SaaS marketing, multiscreen video, and mobile marketing.

Some of my websites actually get decent referrals from twitter, that's was also true even before the sites had their own twitter username.

So yeh, some people must be using it :) But not everyones cup of tea, including mine!

Many times a day I'll just open my stream and read a few tweets. Usually I'll find great content like links to blog posts and job opportunities. I've gotten a lot of real value out of Twitter.

It's the standard tool for communication in the world of writing about video games, comics, and other things like that.

Has been for me, for advocacy for a charitable cause.