I use twitter for a few different reasons. I find it a good way to keep in touch with people and a good way to find information on things. A lot of good people in the tech industry use it efficiently without putting too much useless stuff out there (at least from what seem to be business accounts), but there are some unfortunate situations that I find really irk me.
The biggest problem tweeter right now is Technet (@technetblogs). The official twitter account for Microsofts Technet Blogs can be a huge spambot. It sends out the same tweet in 10 different languages, and the link on an English tweet can lead you to a page in a non-English language. Being too lazy (I would say cheep, but twitter is free) to set up individual accounts for different languages, and making sure your bot posts the right links for the right language is something Microsoft can’t seem to handle.
Another one comes from a favorite site of mine, ZDNet. I get the main ZDNet twitter feed, and then watch as @SammyD and @LDignan both send out the EXACT SAME TWEET. Not a variation leading to the same article, but THE EXACT SAME TWEET! OK, so they work for ZDNet, but come on guys, at least spice it up a bit.
I have some people I follow and don’t click on their links, and instead do a quick search on what they are saying. That’s mostly cause they are smaller bloggers, or unknowns and I don’t trust the links (first step to security is being a bit paranoid).
Yeah, Twitter is a cool thing, and I do get a lot of good use out of it, but seriously, some people/companies need to not be so lazy about it.