Hi Kevin,
I'll get in touch about your Twitter use, which sounds very interesting. I've put some other uses in the handout at the bottom of this entry on our blog.
One thing that's particularly interesting and distinctive about Twitter is that it has a search engine which tells us what people are saying about a given phenomenon at a given time. I understand that the Schiphol plane crash was the first time that media sourced an eyewitness interviewee from Twitter. Twitter users were reporting before the mainstream news.
I also think it's safe to say that some people (not necessarily Goldsmiths people), are frankly appalled by the tide of aimless or solipsistic noise - which Twitter enthusiasts view as broadened horizons and the chance of serendipity.
The last thing to mention is that Twitter seems more relevant to or in some disciplines than others. For example, swathes of social science researchers are moving onto the Web to discover more about online communities and communication.
Mira