I've been trying to explain why Twitter on a personal level and a marketing level. And then I stumbled across this bit from Clive Thompson of Wired:
"Twitter is the app that everyone loves to hate.
...but it's like proprioception, your body's ability to know where your limbs are...Twitter and other constant-contact media create social proprioception. They give a group of people a sense of itself, making possible weird, fascinating feats of coordination.
So why has Twitter been so misunderstood? Because it's experiential. Scrolling through random Twitter messages can't explain the appeal. You have to do it — and, more important, do it with friends.
Quick-ping media can be a massive time-suck...[but] that tactile sense of your community is simply too much fun, too useful — and it makes the group more than the sum of its parts."
Delta Airlines threw themselves into this thing, but it looks like they haven't updated their page in TWO MONTHS. And here's my page.