Twitter is used more to keep tabs on stuff real-time, than just keeping up with friends.

For example, if I want to make an event .. say … the opening day of some new movie and perhaps dinner before, and drinks afterwards.. I’d twitter about it. People who follow me on twitter may be interested and reply – while they are out and about, assuming they have twitter turned on to use their mobile device.

Say that 15 people throw down for the event – we can all coordinate real time on twitter. WHo is where, whos buying tickets, whos going to be late, and if they are going to be late, what to get them for dinner etc. Its really quite handy.

I’d say 10-15 people from San Diego went up there for the shindig, and we all kept in close contact by using twitter. All of the gossipy happenings went out over twitter (like Arrington kicking out Pete Cashmore, and the photographer from Valleywag) then the subequent afterparties..

MC Hammer showing up..

The list goes on. Think of it as a broadcast system you can operate from your phone. It’s very handy if you have 50 people and you need to know whats going on with any one of them at any given moment and you’re not at a laptop

I avoided Twitter for a while for fear of getting “sucked in” to another social networking tool. But here’s a good example of how it’s been helpful since I started using it in March:

At SXSW this year, by following some friends and other folks I knew I’d like to run into, I was able to track what parties and events people were headed to and hear in real-time what they were thinking about the panels they were attending. That was really helpful since there was no way I could have kept up with that info stream over email or texting (nor would all of us have taken the time to even message each other in those ways with the brief one-sentence-long updates you can easily post to Twitter).

A couples back from SXSW, I’ve gotten back into checking in on my Twitter feed at least a couple times a day as I’ve found it a pretty good way to keep up with what your friends, colleagues, peers and others in the industry are thinking about, working on, etc.