@greg_beau
I find it excellent for establishing a news feed - recent events, both local and (inter)national have come to me first via Tweets.
I have made a number of acquaintances I would not otherwise have had the opportunity to know via Twitter. Just yesterday Lorne Rubenstein and I exchanged a few words. That was pretty neat.
To counter Ally's point, I find that by choosing to follow different types of people than I would usually meet, it has broadened my perspective. While there are some at extreme ends of whatever scale that still irritate and soon get un-followed, I follow a number of younger people and it has been a breath of fresh air in learning about things to which I would normally have no exposure. In fact, they now think I am a little bit cool because I am old to their way of thinking but can chat with them on their terms.