Twitter is a micro blogging web 2.0, social networking, latest trend, etc…. site….. that allows you to post short messages (think sms), videos, links, photos ‘Out There’ (the Internet/twitter sphere). If you are more of a video person, the guys at http://www.commoncraft.com have put together a great video which you can watch here – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddO9idmax0o

Or just click play – below:

So in short, it is a way read and share messages from people you know to see what they are up to and also a way to see what the rest of the world is up to. Of course not everyone is doing that, or believes there is a point in doing that. If you have the time, take a look at this interview that David Letterman had with Kevin Spacey: Letterman on Twitter: “A Waste of Time”

It is a great video and well worth the watch. But it does raise the question. Is Twitter a waste of time? Before I answer, I would like to point to another video by Common Craft which can be watched here – http://www.commoncraft.com/twitter-search

or just watch the video below:

So if you had to ask yourself as a business is Twitter as waste of time? I would strongly advise you to rephrase that and put forward the question ‘Can we ignore twitter?’.

I would like to focus on Dell. They have embraced the web, and have been a great example how distribution/warehouse costs can be managed effectively to create a ‘just on time’ business model with its partners. Until this year, they only sold their products online. Now they have changed that and have Dick Smith Electronics, and Officeworks where you can walk into a store and buy a PC.

So what have Dell done with twitter? Embraced it! Here are a few of the Dell twitter accounts (there were at least 20 different accounts I found I could follow depending on my needs):

• http://twitter.com/Direct
• http://twitter.com/DellHomeSalesAU
• http://twitter.com/Direct2Dell
• http://twitter.com/DellYourBlog

Dell has been tracking the amount of people who have clicked through their links and it has raked in a cool $3 million (Mentioned on ViralBlog). With results like that it puts Dell up there in the top 100 most mentioned brands on twitter. For a full list of sites you can check out www.revolutionmagazine.com where you can see the likes of Starbucks taking up first position.

I just received an email saying that ‘Twittorati‘ is up and running. Now if you were like me you would of made the connection between Technorati and Twitter, and that is exactly what it is. Technorati have branched out from the blogsphere and are now monitoring the latest trends in the twittersphere. Self described as:

‘Where the blogsphere and twittersphere meet’

Twittorati lets you find out the latest tweets, photos, links and blogs to have gone through twitter and displays them in an easy to use interface. This is a great example of web 2.0 technologies combining together to provide a service to consumers and begs the question.

Can you afford to ignore Twittorati?

Of course this depends who you are, but one thing I will find interesting is the war between the most ‘influential voices’ take place and how business will engage themselves on Twittorati. For me, I’ve got my bet that we will see a forever changing top 100 as trends rapidly change in the twittersphere.

Check out these sites and monitor for yourself:

www.twittorati.com – www.twitter.com – www.technorati.com

One thing which I’ve found interesting is that on alexa twittorati currently ranked 75,842 (3month average, compared to 20,400 (yesterday). That isn’t bad considering that it has jumped up by over 19,000,000 spots in after 3 months.