As an object of study, its hard to do quant analysis of Twitter now because so much of it is spam (unless you're studying spam, that is). And even qualitative analyses will have to be careful. Our 2 Twitterology papers got into the sweet spot when Twitter was an appreciable size but before spam dominated (about 80% of my new would-be Followers) OTOH, I find Twitter useful for research leads -- such as the Atlantic article a tweep broadcast today about how the Internet almost fractured -- or Zeynep et al's (@techsoc) discussion of social media and MENA revolutions. Barry Wellman _______________________________________________________________________ S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC NetLab Director Department of Sociology 725 Spadina Avenue, Room 388 University of Toronto Toronto Canada M5S 2J4 twitter:barrywellman http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman fax:+1-416-978-3963 Updating history: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php _______________________________________________________________________