To tweet or not to tweet, that is the question.

There is no denying that Twitter is a social media phenomenon. Let’s be honest; once Oprah jumped on the Twitter bandwagon in April of this year (2009), you knew it was probably something you should check out. Although it was originally intended to help teens keep up with each other, it has grown considerably over the last year. In fact, the vast majority of network users are adults, not children. Only 11% of Twitter users are between the ages of 11 and 17. Twitter has become much more than just another way to find out if your friend is at the coffee shop or if Ashton Kutcher is on vacation in the Caribbean. He talks to a teenager and he’ll probably tell you that Twitter is pathetic; they prefer to go to Facebook to have longer chats, exchange photos and play games.

So why the interest of adults? The 140-character limit on posts, at first, doesn’t seem to lend itself to anything more than “At the grocery store. Lines are long.” But Twitter is about much more than just sending mundane messages into the ether. Although Kutcher beat CNN in a challenge to gain a million followers this spring, CNN acquired a ton of followers. To date, there are more than 2.8 million people receiving their latest news. (Sure, Kutcher still tops them with over 4 million followers, but that’s a lot of people getting instant updates without turning on the TV.) You don’t have to follow Britney Spears; there are news organizations like NPR and CBS, politicians like Barack Obama, John McCain and Al Gore. Stay up to date with sports by following the NBA, NFL or MLB Twitter feeds.

While it might seem daunting to have countless tweets clogging up your phone on a day of big news, there are ways to cut it down and even do some research. Do a search through a Twitter aggregator so you can keep up with the news that only interests you to read. Twist, Tweetizen, and Twitturly are three aggregators that can help you narrow your searches by topic, filter lists based on keywords and tags, form groups to facilitate discussion on a particular topic, and keep track of how many times the news, video, or the image has been posted or retweeted. Do you have a product that you think is going to take off? Check out the buzz on Twitter, invite people to join your group, it’s all free advertising.

There are great businesses to be found on Twitter. More and more companies are jumping on the bandwagon to offer website links, coupons, new product information, sale announcements, and more. There are rumors that ads will soon be included on the network. Twitter could charge a small fee and not have to search for content. Everything is provided for free by tweeters.

Twitter is even becoming a great place to find a job. Companies looking for social media-savvy employees have decided that the best way to find them is to go to the source. As job boards become more saturated, recruiting professionals are finding more of what they’re looking for on Twitter and at a lower cost than advertising at regular meetings. Many HR professionals will accept tweeted questions like “what should I wear to the interview?” and tweet a response in a reasonable amount of time.

It’s not all sunshine and roses for Twitter at the moment, with October numbers reporting the first decline in unique home users. It’s only 8%, which still leaves a whopping 19.2 million, but that’s enough to worry some investors. New features such as retweets and lists were implemented to help reverse the trend. The question that has yet to be answered is why the drop, and is it really a concern? It may just be an adjustment period, especially with more young users moving to other social media options. But with so many adults and businesses finding ways to work more efficiently and cheaply with this tool, it seems unlikely that it will go away any time soon.

Twitter’s undeniable popularity is backed by more than just fashion and fantasy. There are few options that allow you to make a brief and instant connection with potentially 19.2 million people in such an easy, affordable and fun way. Whether you’re looking for a job, researching a product, or just keeping up with your favorite sports team, Twitter has an app to help you achieve both your business and pleasure goals.