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Gina Riley is at a dinner party and her hosts accuse her of being anti-social: instead of politely chatting to the other guests, she’s talking to me. How is this anti-social? Because I’m not actually invited – I’m just following her updates on Twitter.

Twitter is everywhere at the moment. The other night Rove was talking about it, trying to figure out what it was and why people would want to use it. I don’t watch Rove. But I know anyway, because everyone was tweeting about it.

You may have heard of Twitter and dismissed it or maybe you’ve registered and given up. While it is great fun and increasingly popular, Twitter can be quite impenetrable for the new user.

For a virgin ‘tweeter’, sending what is essentially a text message about their current activities to no-one in particular seems pointless. As a result, there are many Twitter accounts out there languishing alone, unread and out of date due to a lack of initiative and attention on the part of the account owner.

But don’t let the initial perplexity be a turn-off: it’s an incredibly useful, addictive and powerful tool.

The other night I tweeted that I was looking for a good local pub, and within seconds a Friend replied with a link to a list of Melbourne pub crawls, complete with maps and ratings. It’s a fast and original way to share and receive news and content, and the more people actively take part, the more news and content there will be.

If you’re a tweeting virgin, a good place to start is to consider what inspired you to register in the first place. Was it Rove? Go find him (@rovermcmanus), and follow him. Check who he’s following or replying to, and follow them. Rove may still be trying to figure out what Twitter is, or how to use it, as at the time of writing he hasn’t tweeted- yet, but he has almost a thousand people following him, and now you have something in common with them – you follow Rove McManus.

Got an interest in something? Hobbies, current affairs? Cruise over to http://search.twitter.com and type in your search term. The results will show who is talking about that topic right now.

Can’t think of anything? Again, visit the search portal and there is a ranking of ‘trending topics’ and ‘nifty queries’ (searches) on the right hand side. Another source of useful insights and potential people to follow.

There’s scores of celebrities and interesting characters on Twitter as of right now. Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) is the obvious brilliant choice. He tweets pictures from his film, TV and documentary sets at all hours of the day and varying levels of sobriety. Most memorable was the 4am tweet I received from him with his hand in a box of spiders. And Gina Riley is fast becoming a favourite of mine if you’re after a local foxy-moron who apparently rocks at Guitar Hero. Even the Dalai Lama’s there, dispensing wisdom.

Once you have a handful of followers and followees, try using http://twitter.grader.com. This site can analyse how you use Twitter, what you say, who to, and then suggest new followees for you.

Twitter also has enormous potential as a marketing and customer relationship tool.

Many brands are already present and using it as a channel to address their customers and act on their feedback, both good and bad. Not to mention the opportunities it creates to launch a products and campaigns or even gather suggestions for new product development suggestions and market research.

There’s also real value for the individual to use it professionally.

Sites like http://www.twellow.com allow you to create a more in-depth profile and search for other people in your area, profession and industry, even people in the same country or city. Finding these groups of like-minded people and following them means that anything interesting they find will be just a click away for you too.

Immeasurably valuable if you work in a fast paced industry and need to stay on top of news and developments specific to your profession.

Twitter is also a novel and unobtrusive way to make contact with a potential client, supplier, mentor, employer or employee and share your thinking and work. By building a rapport and impression prior to making a more traditional approach, you’re a step ahead of the rest.

For example, recruiters are using Twitter to find candidates for roles they are filling, find research candidates to headhunt or just to build their own profiles and reputations. Freelancers and journalists are also exploiting Twitter’s beautifully simple functionality to mine for potential work. There’s nothing to stop anyone submitting a query for “need copywriter”, or “selling house” really, is there?

There’s a joke going around that Web 3.0 will be the filtering out of all the rubbish generated by Web 2.0. To quote Homer Simpson: It’s funny, because it’s true.

If Web 3.0 is to be about personalisation, then Twitter may well be the harbinger of the personalisation age of the Internet. Use it well, and Twitter aggregates all the information you could ever want, about whatever you’re interested in. Add to that that it is a massively useful (and usable) research and networking tool and the list of reasons to NOT be on Twitter is dwindling.

Pretty soon, not being on Twitter will mean you’re missing out on news, advice, even good deals from online retailers. If you’re still wary, confused or uncertain, just jump in, follow some people and pose the age old question; “What am I doing here?” You never know who might answer.