The Twitter hype machine has been firing on all cylinders lately. Some people think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, while others dismiss it off as being a yet another useless time-sink for the Web 2.0 generation. Me? I simply think it's interesting and fun. :)

Back in January, I wrote about some of the things that made Twitter appealing to me. Since then, I've discovered some other reasons why I still enjoy using it.

As Brandon points out, unlike many other social networking services, everyone's Twitter status updates are shared with everyone else (unless you switch to "friends-only" mode). The nice thing about this is that as the network grows, you can start looking at updates from people in your extended network - your friends' friends, whom you might not necessarily know directly. Over the last few weeks, I've made some new "friends" with similar interests and found new blogs with interesting content that I might have not discovered otherwise. Unlike Scoble and Pirillo, I don't plan on befriending virtually the entire blogosphere (1044 friends?! I simply wouldn't be able to keep up and get any real work done!), but for me, Twitter is an interesting way to find new people, new blogs, and get fresh perspectives on things.

Facebook and Twitter share a similar "status updates" feature, but they currently serve two very different purposes for me. Facebook lets me keep in touch with old friends from high school and friends from university, while Twitter seems to have become my network of fellow-geeks and "e-friends," many of whom I've never actually met in person, but who are great people to know nonetheless.

If you read this blog and you're on Twitter, feel free to add me as a friend. And if you're not, why not try it out? :)