The point, or not, of Twitter

So much vexation on the web this week after Pear Analytics' assertion that 40% of tweets are 'Pointless Babble' (their caps). These are my favourite responses: dana Boyd's rant, Stephen Fry's rant (shorter than dana's but similar drift); and Devin Coldewey's post at Techcrunch 'Why I don't use Twitter', which introduces the lovely term 'Tweetotallers' for Twitter refuseniks. Suprisingly, I haven't yet seen anyone cite Robin Dunbar's Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language which deals wonderfully with the grooming function of pointless babble, I mean phatic communication.