Business Week publishes an article today on Why Twitter Matters.

Some of the best comments from the article run to why we hang on to the mundane comments about what someone is eating, to what they found under the couch. The author points out these are often the same comments we make on the phone and that kind of turned out to be an important tool. But most importantly, this paragraph rocked hard:

Businesses such as H&R Block (HRB) and Zappos are now using Twitter to respond to customer queries. Market researchers look to it to scope out minute-by-minute trends. Media groups are focusing on Twitterers as first-to-the-scene reporters. (They were on top of the May 12 China earthquake within minutes.) Loads of new applications and services are growing around the Twitter platform, leading some to suggest that the microblogging service could become a powerhouse in social media.

We recently had an internal training about emergency communications for our office. Twitter was one of three important processes for handling communications in the event of a local disaster. I find that I use Direct Messaging DM more often that regular tweets (a posted Twitter message) to respond and connect with people I have a relationship with. Some of those relationships are directly from the Twitter community.

Read the article, decide how it fits into your marketing and communications plans.