this thread is interesting but not basic enough for me. I don’t have a twitter account (are they free?) - should I get one? is it better/different from Facebook and, if so, how?
I am currently reading about twitter over on howstuffworks.com but would also like your reasons for liking twitter.
do some just “lurk” and never tweet themselves?
Good questions-- I’ve always about some of them myself.
Twitter is free AFAIK, just like Facebook.
I’d think you could lurk on Twitter (i.e., just following X person’s feeds).
I have several friends with Twitter accounts who don’t much more than send out a daily observation/quote/photo. I have other friends who use Twitter mostly as a self-promotion tool.
The reporters for our local paper all have Twitter accounts. A lot of people I know IRL follow them for breaking local news as it’s happening.
I don’t have an Twitter account. There’s something that rubs me the wrong way about having to look at your phone every time there’s a “tweet” (yes, your phone will actually make a tweeting noise whenever somebody you’re following posts), and I try not to let my phone be my third hand.
Twitter works pretty much like the messages on Facebook. They’re just short bits of text that people can post quickly, nothing particularly remarkable about it. If you’re just interested in following other people you don’t necessarily have to sign up, you could always just subscribe via RSS.
I gotta be honest with myself: I just don’t have enough interesting things to share with the world.
Someone once said that Facebook is for people you know; Twitter is how you meet new people. This has been true for me in a professional sense (I have no idea whether people end up dating on Twitter or not) – I’ve done a lot of useful networking, including some that has ended up in paid work for me, via Twitter.
You don’t have to tweet yourself if you don’t want to, but it’s an easy way to keep my finger on the pulse of a bunch of my different interests, both work related (I write on higher ed, so follow local colleges, and on digital marketing, so follow others who post on that, plus people who comment on writing and editing issues) and personal (lots of political feeds for great election-year info and snark, local news and events, knitters, some celebs).
I have been on Twitter for ever but I dont Tweet. I have nothing to say really. It is a good way to follow interests.
If this is your chief complaint, youre doing it wrong. Notifications are one of the simplest things to manage on Twitter. I only get notices on my phone when someone replies to me or sends me a direct message - but I could easily turn that off if I chose to.
You certainly can just lurk on twitter, and there’s a good reason to set up an account for this, even if you don’t follow anyone (though I suggest following your local newspapers and TV or radio stations).
Twitter is the fastest way to get up to date info in case of a disaster or other breaking news, or news that affects your local area. For instance, whenever there is a power outage, I search twitter for the name of my local power company, and I can see how widespread the outage is and see the power company’s posts so I know they are working on it.
I didn’t know that!
Which goes to prove I’m more of a Twitter noob than I thought I was 
Does it feel like your life is sadly lacking twerper, that you have any real need to twerp? Twerping is just another bad habit.
(Btw, I do not use twerper, and hence don’t twerp)
Of self-promoting on Twitter: I don’t know all the nuances, but a friend of mine has made a name for herself in her particular occupational circle. Her bread and butter is tweeting interesting links to articles and such that she knows are of interest to her “circle”. They retweet those links, those people retweet the links, and it keeps going and going. The good thing is that, because my friend initiated the link, and because her name is associated with the retweet, she’s been steadily getting followers as time passes. Not bad at all!
My husband follows a similar formula for his professional niches. He has a different Twitter accounts for each niche, and every so often he likes to compare how many followers he has on one account compared to another compared to his own personal account.
Then what are YOU doing HERE?
I’ve been on Twitter for a number of years - but I have a grand total of 260 tweets. That’s because there is rarely anything useful for “normal” people to be tweeting about. Unless there’s a specific area in which you specialize, or you’re active in a particular activity, there isn’t much reason anyone would be following you.
However, Twitter itself is an invaluable tool to me for a number of reasons:
I follow a number of people in my industry that offer great insights into the field.
I follow a number of news feeds that provide breaking news.
I follow a number of news sources that offer further insight into their articles, etc.
I follow a number of sports feeds that I’m interested in.
I follow a small number of celebrities/comedians that are pretty funny.
Note the complete lack of following friends or family members. Twitter, for me, is completely useless for following people’s daily lives. That’s what Facebook is for. If Uncle Ralph wants to tweet what he had for dinner - that’s fine, but I have absolutely no interest in hearing about it on Twitter, and it’s most likely going to get lost in the noise of the rest of my feed. Now, if Uncle Ralph goes to a speech or something and live tweets the event, I might check in on his feed to see if there’s a particular reason to follow Uncle Ralph on his own merits - but once he goes back to tweeting about mowing the lawn, I’m going to unfollow him.
I’m on Twitter but rarely ever Tweet. I mainly use it to follow some people I enjoy (mainly politics stuff) and a few humorous people. It’s a nice quick way to browse the news just by seeing what others are talking about.
I resisted Twitter until a few months ago and now love it. As others have said, I use Facebook to learn what my family and friends are having for lunch, and Twitter for professional/personal interests and news/politics. I have four followers and three tweets, but I’ve learned a great deal from what much more interesting people tweet. 
Go ahead and start, but look out for the Fail Whale!
Khadaji-I’m boring too! That’s why I follow interesting people.
The OP was asking if they should or should not get started doing this.
Why is posting here OK, but there’s something wrong with posting to twitter? Or in other words which might sound familiar,
Does it feel like your life is sadly lacking poster, that you have any real need to post? Posting is just another bad habit.
I was wondering recently if Twitter is at all useful for people who don’t use cell phones.