You may have heard the buzz around it, but been confused: What exactly is Twitter? Why is it useful, and why should I pay attention? And how can I use it to connect audiences at events - or to drive traffic to my site?

What’s Twitter?

Twitter is a deceptively simple technology. Sign up for an account. Invite your friends to do the same. Then, you can send each other short little messages - like the ones below - using your phone or the web. Your messages go out to everyone in your network.

You can receive your Twitter messages however you like - via IM, web, or SMS (text message). It wouldn’t be a stretch to call Twitter-ing microblogging.

Flickr’d by rorris | Flickr’d by cackhanded | Flickr’d by Patrick Haney

Why is Twitter useful?

Twitter works really well in two ways:
1. Connecting wired friends in a compact urban environment. At South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) 2007, networks of people used Twitter to find out about great conferences and parties, and to meetup with each other.

2. Connecting like-minded friends over topical interests. Now that SXSWi is over, my network sends out links to things I’m interested in, like new web developments.

Sounds cool. How can alts use Twitter?

Use Twitter at sponsored events to help people interact A screen displaying the latest “twits” from attendees is a huge crowd pleaser.

Use Twitter to drive traffic to your site FoxNews has taken the lead here, using their Twitter account to send out the latest news to their “friends.”

NERD NOTE: Fox News uses TinyUrl.com, a program that shortens lengthy URLs, in order to stay within the 140 word character Twitter maximum.

So what do you think?

Is Twitter overrated? Do you see other ways alts could use this technology to connect with our audiences?