twit for tat

6 months, 2 courses, and 1 great professor could not convince me that twitter is a powerful marketing tool, i know, the news and the surveys give you a hell lot of information about how effective it is to market your product using "twits", but i just dont get it. to start with, twitter is about updates from people you "follow" and for heaven's sake it allows about 140 characters in that text box, so coke is launching a new flavour, and it had a twitter update there about it, i know that company has a million followers but what exactly are we expecting here? people who are on twitter every day, all the time to respond to "that" update ? im not sure if we are targeting the people we want. twitter, as popular it is, needs constant attention, "ah my friend updates his location on twitter" its so convenient to spot it.. quite frankly, who cares? and who are these people who are updating their status every now and then, people with too much time, and probably some kind of attention seeking syndrome. getting back to the marketing aspect of twitter, i havent tried this part yet, but it is supposedly a very powerful tool, "let people know about your product", its a waste of time. I am better off making a facebook page than having a tweet page. the people at twitter have to realise that the customer that they cater too are either teenagers who have no work, or very tech savvy people, both care enough to be a part of something new happening @ web 2.0. the companies have to realise that they need to have a very powerful filter technique in order to separate and classify user's .. rather customers according to their needs. both, also do not care much about "products" they are there, because they want to be "there".. i have tried my hands on twitter, and i would dare not enter that boring world again. i have always felt, there is a fine line between keeping it casual and keeping it professional. a good mix of them would certainly do wonders for you and your product, but a random mix .. well a random mix is usually a mess. i do appreciate the new addition "twitter business", and can also admire the marketing done using 140 characters, but then we have to consider the fact that it is only the first step that is taken here, first stop in long journey of b2b marketing, but then, what next, are they always going to use twitter to find businesses, i dont think so, i think we need more that 140 characters there. sure you can just post your website link and hope for others to reach you, but then again you are catering only to the "highs" and the "lows" people.. when the people in between are the ones that really need you. 021