Oh Twitter, my Twitter

Twitter is NOT my Captain, and it is also not lying dead on the deck of this particular ship. I have always found Whitman's poem stirring and its rhythms seem to come to me whenever I am of two minds about something. On one hand, Twitter is becoming extremely valuable for filtering, but especially for identifying delicious bits of useful data (no, not del.icio.us/fieldap, that is another story).

For instance, several years ago I was asked if there was some kind of judges training manual. This was not a facetious question, or anything that came out of a percieved 'bad' decision, just curiosity. Today, among the many blips that floated across my screen was this via Twitter:

CanLawMagCan. Judicial Council releases manual for appellate court judges. Could be some interesting reading. http://bit.ly/1aklq9

Twitter has proven very useful over the past few months for in the moment delivery of those "wow, I am glad I saw it" tidbits. Is it useful because I follow a few reliable sources? Would I glean this info some other way if I didn't monitor Tweets? Is it the timeliness that is the value, or the serendipity that shows interesting items among my community of practice on Twitter that happen to coincide with current thoughts/problems/issues we all have?

The question now is, what amount of time should I devote to monitoring instant media.

I am still thinking about these time+value issues. Any insight in the comments would be appreciated. Or follow me on Twitter and share your thoughts @smireau