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Unlike FB, (which I could never see the point of), Twitter allows you to follow people you don't know.
As @maflynn says, it is a form of social media for micro-blogging.
It is a useful vehicle for those in the public eye - journalists, some politicians, statesman (and women), writers, to show a slightly less guarded and less formal version of themselves and to offer their real opinions (rather than those of the body, or organisation that they work for; most who tweet in a personal capacity will have disclaimers in their signature stating that these views are personal).
In essence, it allows for a public presence that is more informal, and more open.
It is also brilliant for breaking stories: Besides, for me, it is a terrific way of keeping abreast of political thoughts and developments - as some tweets cite articles that I might never think of reading if I hadn't seen them recommended by people whose views I respect.
For some authors, there can be an element of dialogue - some will respond to tweets that you post, - which were often a response to something that they had posted originally - which is always enjoyable.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding but on FB, you can certainly follow people you don't know, get new/feeds/photos/stories from them, not unlike Twitter. The exact delivery mechanism is a bit different, but the "following" concept is roughly the same ... ?
I prefer to preserve - and police - my personal space.
And I don't want feeds, or videos, photos, or stories from them - just succinctly expressed thoughts, and perhaps a link, or recommendation to an interesting article, maybe one that they may have written themselves.
Twitter actually does that. And it allows you to keep abreast of individuals in countries where you may have worked.
For what it is worth, I have no interest in the personal lives of the vast majority of the people I follow on Twitter - we discuss food, history, politics, literature, occasionally stuff such as football - and - mercifully - they have no interest in mine.
I follow on FB plenty of people in the engineer, software development, 3D visualization space and all their articles are professionally related. I have Twitter users I follow that will randomly interject personal content into their stream (though the original reason I followed them was professional/academic/etc).
i.e., I think it's more in the source being followed - in terms of content - than the mechanism used to delivery said content, though I agree that Twitter's (at least up till now) more minimal format reduces the mental clutter a bit.
Twitter user since July 2007
