Do tweets add value?

I’ve been a twitter user for little more than a year. In the beginning, it was just casual & meaningless I-am-here & I-am-doing-that kind-of tweets. Over time, I realized, I could benefit from the tweets by people around the world.

I’ve searched and followed few fantastic people who inspire, lead and share valuable contents – though limited to 140 characters. To get continuous value, I adjust my ‘follow’ counts quite often. Though I try to keep the count to a manageable limit, it isn’t possible with so many good people around.

Here is a list of folks whose tweets I read on priority, because they provide valuable contents often. Interestingly I’ve met not even one of these folks in person!

	Leadership Guy – Orrin provides thought provoking and inspirational leadership quotes. Some days, I read only Orrin. Earlier, I used to save these tweets in my laptop; now I favorite them in Twitter itself.
	Budding Writer – You wouldn’t take a teenager seriously. Normally that would be true; but not Meghan. She has the motivation to be the next great writer. Sometimes, I wonder if she is really a teen.
	Comedy Man -  Only Ramesh can take the current events and twist it to bring a laugh. He is amazing at that. Mind that he primarily targets Indian system, so if you don’t follow Indian events, you won’t have a laugh.
	Cross Cultural Lady  – Having moved from place to place, I’ve developed an interest in cross-cultural communications and related issues. Cindy tweets her experiences and shares links about cross-cultural communication. Some of them are very interesting.
	Spiritual Guy – Amidst so much of Christian wax in the world, Pete displays a young and balanced approach. His church members are lucky.
	Artist Guy – One of these days, when I get enough money, I will hire Jeevan to design my web page, business card and marketing brouchers. I find his designs refreshing and pleasing. He also shares interesting articles and links on photography.
	Social CRM Guy – I’ve been in CRM field for sometime now and I’m interested in combining ‘social revolution’ with CRM. Not only Prem shares info on Social CRM, but he has another intriguing hobby – writing on rice.
	Golden Guy – Ever since I read ‘The Art of the Start‘, I’ve been a fan of Guy. His practical tips to ‘starting startups’ is true for starting any venture. If you are thinking about starting something worthwhile – church, non-profit organization, company – grab this book and apply those time-tested principles.
	Mac Tips – Okay this may not be a person. But being a recent mac-convert, I find these tweets helpful in finding useful, free Mac Applications.
	Startup Consultant – I’ve started to follow Martin very recently. One of his recent entry in his blog encourages startups to start with a problem rather than an idea. Reading through the entry, I knew I’m following a solid guy.

I’ve found that, if you follow popular users for the sake of improving twitter rank, then usually you loose interest reading through pile of useless tweets. Find folks who will help you with useful tweets and you’ll benefit tremendously from 140 chars.