My answer never seems complete, perhaps because I always feel like the question should be what does Twitter do for me? Why should I use it? In a reply to James’ story on changes to the Twitter service, @Liz explains just why Twitter is so important too her.

‘it’s that I want to see everything that @BarackObama tweets, no matter who it’s addressed to. I can already do that on the web interface by looking at their profile page but by choosing all @replies, it meant that they came directly to me in my Tweetstream. Now, I have to go out and search for them’.

At Republic we encourage our clients to think about social media as a set of tools. For the end user they can be tools that enable greater understanding and communication with the world around them. Once you know why you want to explore social media platforms, services like Tweetdeck and Newsmap can help you to organize the information you receive into manageable chunks.

We believe that harnessing social media tools in tandem with an clear and concise editorial strategy, forms an instant and accessible way for brands to hold direct a dialogue with their customers.

So what does Twitter do for me? I’m a bit of a world news addict. I started using Twitter’s real time search function around the time of the Mumbai tragedy. I found it a fascinating and easy way to discover real time local opinion and reaction to global events. In a small way this service delivered something that before was hard to access though mainstream media.