Twitter is growing up

I know plenty of people think Twitter is more hype than substance, but the evidence is growing that it is becoming an important component of the web, how we use it, and how we find information.

For example, take the stat that 10 per cent of Twitter's downstream traffic - that is, where users go after Twitter - is BBC news. So it's clearly being used as a tool for finding out what's happening by a sizeable minority of users, not just for micro-blogging about the inconsequential.

Some users find it's the first place they go each day, even before RSS feeds. At Cybersoc they have set the ball rolling on a survey of how people use Twitter

The London Daily Telegraph has published a list of all its staff who use Twitter. Meanwhile, one twitterer set up a bogus Daily Mail Twitter account and, he claims, immediately got over 700 followers, which he says is about six times more than the "official" Daily Mail twitter. Actually it had 216 followers when I checked just now.

But who needs any of that when twitterers have their own online newspaper, which, it is intended, will be made up entirely of their tweets.

Yet there are signs that Twitter is outgrowing its 140-character content limit. So here comes TwitBlogs. Which is Twitter, only more. So are they diluting the USP, or is this a better form of blogging?