Amazing analogy, far better than any other metaphor I've previously heard applied to Twitter
Take for instance the recent tornado we had off the Oregon coast. I had video/pictures/reports showing up even ahead of the local NOAA site or google news.
Granted, it was the first time I ever went to Twitter for something like this, but I knew that it was /the/ place for the most up to date information.
And I try to avoid Twitter as much as possible, too annoying to read in there.
Generally speaking, it's great for aggregating witness accounts of a real-time event that's going on.
The person you replied to was responding to the idea that Twitter is a good source of news.
We had that. It's called Usenet and IRC.
Look up "eternal September" if you want to understand the demographic of Usenet...
The skill (and motivation) gap between using something like IRC and Twitter is massive.
Usenet, IRC, Twitter, neither is really important for anyone besides are rather limited subsection of the general population.
You might not know people personally, but certainly you're aware of Twitter's role in the Arab Spring. And you've heard of Black Twitter, right?
I had 12000 followers for a twitter account about a specific football club - a specific subsection but not a technical or media one.
I used to randomly look at my followers and while many were "highly invested tech and media people" - the majority were just people who wanted to stay up to date (in particular I used to live-tweet during games which lots of people really enjoyed).
That was a few years ago though - personally I rarely use Twitter any more.
It's the CB radio of social media and I find huge value in that.