Is there any value in Social Networking? What is Twitter? How does it relate to Facebook et al?

David Tebbutt has posted an interesting article discussing Twitter in terms of what it is and where it fits in the Social Networking space. The following paragraph in particular stood out but it's worth reading the whole piece:

"When blogging first caught on, it seemed to comprise mainly of people wittering on about nothing in particular to an audience that largely couldn't give a ... Some bloggers, though, actually made sense and started to attract followers. Just like journalism, some educated, some informed and some entertained. It didn't really matter. By writing authoritatively about their interests, they started to attract those who were interested in similar things. Communities started to form, through adding comments and including links from their own blogs. This often led to other more conventional forms of contact. Beside this undeniably valuable human aggregation, a massive pool of permanently stored information is there for anyone to explore in the future."

David's earlier post discussing the signal to noise ratio is interesting too as he makes an excellent point that just because a blog is popular doesn't mean it's accurate. As David explains there is a temptation for one to post as frequently as possible to increase the liklihood that your blog will be discovered at the top of the search ratings. I like blogging as readers self select both what's interesting to them. There have been periods when I've not posted a great deal - the reason has been really simple - I've not had a great deal to say.