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I know some times when I get to forcing text onto 140 it become confusing.

Personally I would imagine the truly 'valuable' tweets are even fewer and farther in between. Why? The article says "27% of tweets offered more substantive information such as links to articles/blog or comments about current events." However, this isn't taking into account that probably 90% of those 27% of 'valuable' tweets are simply an endless stream of RTs from people RTing others that most people follow already anyway. Every time there is breaking news on the CNN twitter account, for example, how many thousands retweet it, even though obviously if I'm really interested in breaking CNN news I'd follow CNN (which I do, so I don't really need your RTs of *every single* CNNbrk tweet, thanks). Same thing goes for the 'Twitterati'. Why do you bother retweeting *everything* to me that @Scobleizer tweets? Don't you think I follow him already? At any rate, I'm sure all of these endless RTs are rolled into that 27%, so I wonder what percentage of tweets are truly 'valuable' as defined in this study if the RTs were taken out of the equation?

This isn't to say that I don't value many of the RTs that the people I follow RT to their stream -- I do find a lot of interesting content this way. Its just the constant RTs of nearly every tweet from accounts that anyone in my 'social circle' on twitter (including myself) are likely already closely following that annoy me by cluttering up my stream, especially when the RTer has nothing to add.

I hate to say this, but if you are not in the technology business in some way, the value level goes way down. There are lots of people who tweet real news, but it goes by so fast that the non-technical have trouble getting to it.

Twitter is for anyone and everyone, and you can tweet whatever you like. Period. The way to maximize the value of Twitter for you, is to follow those whose tweets interest you, and also to make lists. You don't need to be a tech, or talk about tech, you just need to have a little intelligence to get yourself a decent signal/noise ratio.

This study doesn't have value to me.

Guy - You need to get in here and police your folks that are providing analysis to the info nuggets that they are finding. This is the second time in as many days that I have found work by your folk that is just flat out wrong.

My tweets are valuable... They are! Really! :'(

It's really as high as 27%. That is astounding!

It's all in who you follow and why.

I am definitely guilty of posting tweets that don't add value, and I am trying to curtail that. I think Twitter conversations, for the most part, are best done via DM.

What's the value of laughter? Often, the 'conversations between two people' are hysterical, or intriguing - which is one of the rarely mentioned 'values' of twitter: eavesdropping. It's what makes it so unique, and its also why so many have so many followers but few retweets, mentions, etc. Because its fun to 'eavesdrop' on the twitterverse in real time - that doesn't mean you want to tweet necessarily...

And who's to say a link or retweet is of 'value?' Is a link to another stupid cute cat video 'valuable?' Or a retweet of a fart joke from Moronblog.com? And who's to say 'what a person is doing' might not be of 'value' to someone else?

Relax, tweeters - this 'analysis' was started from a flawed premise...

I am twitting because believe that writing is the first discipline to things get happen. I write my goals, review them. Apart from that it's fun to share interesting and knowledgeable things.

On the few occasions that I've gone on the Twitter home page to see what the twitterverse is saying, I've been completely underwhelmed.

I would be thrilled with 27% useful. My filters are accustomed to so much worse. "An average of 250 tons of ore must be mined in order to produce a 1 carat gem quality polished diamond"

I feel that the people who participate in Twitter are real people in real life networks, often with substantial personal connections to the people with whom they are tweeting. Their conversations are funny, interesting, and sometimes poignant. To diminish the social connections as not being of substance is completely missing the point of why people use Twitter in the first place. Sure there are some people who are 100% business 24/7 and who just post links, but those people get boring after awhile, because they are too dry.

Also, there are a lot of people using twitter for other things besides talking about social media, tech and marketing. They may listen more than tweet and may not provide as many links. Doesn't mean they are not getting value from it. Those who don't get value from Twitter generally stop participating, anyway.

If Twitter was just about posting links, we'd all save a lot of time, by just using our Google Readers.

Any one has different opinion on twitter is only up to the person how to decide what you put on the twitter. I think twitter is the other way to communicate and meet the interesting people on the web.

Define value. To dismiss tweets about one's cat as valueless is to misunderstand what it is for humans to be social (not just online, but face to face, on the phone and everywhere). Social animals derive value from mundane interaction. The value in any tweet is scoped to a subset of all tweeters, it's just that sometimes the subset is small (one's inner circle) and sometimes large. Furthermore, the value and meaning conveyed by a tweet (or other communicative action) is not solely dependent upon the sender, but also the recipients, each of whom interpret that tweet/action with respect to their own context. Thus, it follows that some recipients will find value and some will not.

Defining value is one part. The other would be to also look at people who deliver value.. Third, a sample size of 1,000 in my view is nothing, and not really all that accurate with millions of tweets flying around.

What would be interesting is to find a way to seperate this 27% out of the total. A mix of what interests you about some people ( I want to know what Jane is eating now a days ) to the topics of your interest ( when can you run your car with water! ) or even business that you want to stay in touch with ( What type of shoes were the bestsellers this season on Zappos?)

If you hav a thought n u wanna discuss d same with othrs, just write a tweet n lets ppl decide tat its worth ot not
If thy r gonna like it, thy will read n respond othrwise just ignore it
Tats wat twitter is

First of all, that statistic is meaningless unless SemanticHacker defines what they (he/she) mean by 'value'. If they're describing value as 'useful information about a topic that some sort of baseline percentage of all twitter users are interested in,' I accept it. But then the question becomes, compared to what? Because that's another criteria that gives meaning to the stat. Are tweets being compared to the relative value of individual media (print, online, video, etc) properties? And what's the baseline of acceptable? Quite frankly, I would think that if 27% of the cacophony of billions of tweets brings real value, that's huge. Look, as Clay Shirky points out, most of the tweeting going on isn't meant for everyone. It's just texting on a global screen. The trick is to stop reading all the cat stories and focus on the various grades of gems floating along on the tide.

As Linda says, define value. To use her example, I might be (although I'm not), one of the many Tweeters that likes to post and read cat stories. For me, they would then be value. To others - it's noise.

Therefore I don't see how you define value on a global basis. We're all different; we all want to see, need to see, and enjoy different information.

Obviously depends on how you define "value"... That is subjective.