Twitter Is Not a Very Social Network. "this makes Twitter more like a broadcast medium than a social network" http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/study_twitter_isnt_very_social.php IMHO. Twitter is hopeless for having conversations. That doesn't mean it's useless, just that it's no good for conversations. Twitter is only really good for 1:few broadcasting. And the stats say that's what people are using it for, even though people do keep (mistakenly) trying to use it for conversations. It seems to me that conversations in this area fall into two types. 1:1 = Private Messages - Twitter Direct Messages - Facebook. How private are they? - Email/Gmail - Ecademy Network Messages - Skype - Phone - SMS Few:Few = Group Conversation - Buzz - Facebook Wall, Facebook Discussion forums - GoogleGroups, Yahoogroups - Skype chats - Wave - Niche-interest Bulletin Board sites - Comment on Blogs - Echo (JS-Kit) - Digg Group conversation is a very powerful tool and motivator and a very basic human need. Unfortunately most Group Conversation platforms are not very good. So people keep trying to twist each new shiny object into a group conversation platform. I'm still looking for the platform that allows ridiculously easy group forming for few:few discussion. For the moment, it seems to be Buzz, but it's not perfect and it doesn't really deal with niche topics.