I'm a little late to the Twitter fan club. It always seemed to me that the short message internet service was going to die after its owners failed to make money on it. I'm not saying anyone will get rich off it, but it clearly has value.

Twitter became the key source of information about the recent Iran election. The Tweets from folks inside Iran were critical to understanding what was happening there. In fact, according to Pew Research, 98% of all Tweets during that week were about Iran. That's stunning. It also confirmed the value of Twitter, at least to me.

Twitter is also a great source for breaking news. I recommend CNN or NPR for breaking news. NPR also provides "live" Tweets during live coverage under the username nprlive.
President Barrack Obama has nearly 1.6 million followers on Twitter making his page one of the most popular. The Obama Twitter page follows more than 770,000 different accounts, but the Obama page is rarely updated. Today, there's only one update. It promotes an online Town Hall about healthcare reform, which takes place on Wednesday. Within the last month, the Obama account has gone as many as five days without an update.

I follow quite a few sites for many different reasons. One of my favorites belongs to basketball Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul Jabbar. On Saturday, Jabbar tweeted 10 times during his visit to Hoopfest in Spokane, WA. His username is KAJ33. Stephen Colbert, host of the hilarious Colbert Report, makes me laugh every time I read one of his updates. His username is StephenTColbert.

There are quite a few Twitter users who offer tips on how to get the most out of your account. One of the best is Kevin Rose, a founder of Digg.com. His username is kevinrose.

I Tweet under the user name InsideNews4. I Tweet about major news developments, investigative updates and even a little bit about what's going on behind the scenes at News 4 and with me.

I look forward to your feedback.

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