I agree the flash-meetup aspect of twitter could/is be part of the testimonials/status updates usage. Just finding it a very good tool for “real world” social interactions, which if used more would increase that 20.3% figure a bit .

Part of the WHY is Events – your organising lunch through twitter is an example. News breaking such as the Bhutto assassination is also an example of an Event in social networking: don’t think of real world events. It’s more of a viral spike of activity preceding a call-to-action (lunch) and a tailing off. BTW did you know that 20.3% of people meet other members offline at least once a year? I expect that to grow.

Another part of the WHY might be Rituals – ‘thank yous’ is a good example: as in “thank you for that link”. Birthday rituals, welcome to Twitter rituals.

Twitter is pretty close to synchronous commucation – not quite as instant as IRC but close. Which is why we use Twitter for breaking news and viral-spike-Breaking-News. After all, Facebook or your blog is not somewhere you sit, reloading, waiting for breaking news, now is it?

My longwinded way of saying: you are right, but I was covering Hows, not Whys.

BTW I commented on James’ piece – thanks for the link. I sent him stuff on Twitter for education. There’s heaps of Twitheads that are Tweachers. Heh. I’m developing a lispth.

Good points on the reactions various people have to twitter, very often the result of looking in at it from the outside. And I am wary of any sweeping generalizations; the internet is just too big and wide to make such pronouncements.