What do you use Twitter for?

Just been listening to the Guardian's inaugural 'Media Talk USA' podcast featuring some of the usual new media suspects. Thought I'd pull out these thoughts on Twitter by Jay Rosen, author of Press Think. Here's how Jay uses Twitter:

• Twitter allows me to develop a constituency for my work.
• It edits the web for me.
• It's my giant hand-built tipster network. It's a great way to basically have people read the news for you and point out what's important.
• I'm using it to help me blog. I use Twitter to sort and realise what is really important and then I can take the reactions that I've got on Twitter, really think about them and craft a post that I already know is right in the centre of the conversation.

So what do I use Twitter for (in no particular order)?

1. Feeding and promoting my blog posts
2. Networking and contacts
3. Asking for help
4. Helping other people out (First, I enjoy helping people and second, if you are always doing 3. and never do 4. you might find that 3. becomes pretty redundant)
5. Exchanging useful links on media and conflict
6. Retweeting interesting tweets
7. Monitoring (breaking) news
8. Informing people about the progress of the work I am doing
9. Providing updates from talks and conferences (though not too many)
10. Finding blogs
11. Finding people
12. Taming the Web
13. Creating a virtual office
14. Tracking conversations between other people that are also of interest to me

Similar lists to be found at Blog Herald, The Guardian, and in video format on Vimeo.